Author Note: There are two details from previous stories that are relevant for this chapter. In "A Touch of True Love," Anna told Kristoff that she considers him to be only a brother. Anna is still wary of romance because of Prince Hans. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what Kristoff thinks of that.

The other detail is that Olaf and a friend spent an afternoon finding every hiding place in Arendelle Village while playing a game in "Olaf's Marketplace Adventure."

Chapter 2 – Around Arendelle

Kristoff and Anna strolled slowly along the causeway in companionable silence, punctuated by Olaf's interruptions as he came to tell them he'd just seen a bird, or a fish, or a rock. They could hear the faint shouts of the boatmen and dock workers at the harbor on the castle island. The ocean lapped against the stone pilings beneath them. There was enough of a chill in the fall air to make Anna glad that Gustav had insisted she bring a cloak.

"What are you staring at?" Anna asked him finally. Her hands went to her hair, wondering if her braids were coming undone.

"You," Kristoff said. "I forgot how pretty you are while I was gone."

"Oh!" Anna's blue eyes lit up and she tried to keep her smile from becoming too obvious, which only served to make it lopsided.

"I mean, I know you said I'm just a brother to you and all that, but is it okay to notice you're the prettiest girl in Arendelle?"

"Do you know all the pretty girls in Arendelle?" Anna asked, glad she was wearing the dress with the green embroidery around the hem. It peeked out below the soft, brown wool cloak she wore.

"Naw, I only know reindeer. You're lots better looking than Sven, and you smell better too. Don't tell Sven I said that though. I wouldn't want him to get his feelings hurt." Kristoff danced out of the way when she swatted at him.

"Look! I found a feather!" Olaf handed Anna a gull feather and ran off again.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you the last time I saw you," Anna said, twirling the feather.

Kristoff shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I deserved it."

"You've been gone six weeks. Is that about how long you'll be gone every time you go up to the mountains?" Anna asked.

He shrugged again. "It changes."

"Will you be here for Christmas?"

"When's Christmas?"

Anna swatted at him again. "December twenty-fifth. Everyone knows that. You're here at Christmas, aren't you?"

"I've never paid much attention to Christmas," Kristoff answered.

"Will you be here?" Anna pressed again.

"It depends on the ice. I don't know," Kristoff said.

Anna scowled at him. "What about my birthday?"

"Which is?"

"April third," Anna answered.

"Spring is our busiest time, Anna. All the lakes are frozen and we're working to fill up the ice cellars and storehouses for the summer," Kristoff said.

This time she growled at him in frustration. "Fine, what about your birthday?"

"My birthday?"

"Yes, your birthday. Will you be here on your birthday?" Anna asked in irritation.

"I don't know when my birthday is. Seriously, who's going to remember when I was born? Let's just say it's the same day as your birthday," Kristoff said.

"So you can miss both of them at the same time?" Anna demanded.

"Okay, how about we say today is my birthday?"

Anna stabbed the feather at him. "I just want to know when you're going to be around."

"I don't know when I'm going to be around. It's not like anyone has ever cared when I'm around. I sell ice for a living. I don't have a schedule, just a job." Kristoff's tone was starting to pick up the same frustration that Anna was speaking with.

"Fine, forget it," Anna said.

"Great idea. Hey, what was that all about when I came to get you?" Kristoff asked.

"I'm learning history from Councilor Gustav. Elsa is putting me in charge of Arendelle's foreign relations," Anna said proudly. "I'm going to be a diplomat."

A minute passed.

Anna smacked his arm. "Well! Say something!"

"If Arendelle thought a midsummer was freeze was a disaster, they haven't seen anything yet!" Kristoff said with a laugh.

Anna blinked tears away. She'd wanted to impress him. Kristoff was so strong and capable and could do everything. Elsa was brilliant and had mysterious, glamorous powers. She wished she could be more like them and impress people too, but she would only ever be completely ordinary. Gustav said she was smart, but maybe he was just being nice because Elsa told him he had to teach her.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Okay. Do you want to meet some friends of mine in the marketplace? This is the last week before most of them pack it in for the winter," Kristoff said. "You said you wanted to meet Tyra, the flower girl."

"You remembered that? I'd love to meet Tyra," Anna said, putting a smile back on and tossing the feather into the harbor.

Tyra was a brunette about Anna's age, with dark eyes, pearly white teeth and a laugh that rang like a bell. She made bouquets out of leaves and pine cones and the last late summer flowers that were beautiful enough to be in a painting. Anna had to remind herself that Kristoff thought she was prettier than Tyra so she could be nice to her. But all her resolve disappeared when Tyra asked Kristoff if he was going to walk her home tonight and Kristoff said yes.

"Will you come too, Princess Anna?" Tyra asked.

"No," Kristoff answered for her. "She has to be back to the castle before dark."

"Do you have trouble finding your way home, Tyra?" Anna asked.

"Well, no, but Kristoff always walks me home when he's in town," Tyra answered.

"She carries money, Anna," Kristoff said. "If I'm with her, no one bothers her."

"Isn't that nice of you?" Anna said. "Excuse me, I'm going to look at the scarves."

Anna was angrily admiring a dark blue scarf woven with silver threads and wondering if she should buy it for Elsa when she saw Olaf leaving the marketplace with a boy. "Olaf!" she called, but Olaf was already too far away to hear. She hung the scarf back on the peg and went after him. And she really didn't care if Kristoff came with them or not.

~###~

Kristoff hadn't been talking to Tyra very long when Flora, the berry woman, grabbed him by the shoulder, pulled him around and pointed. "Your snowman and princess are headed to the waterfront," she said.

"What?"

"You knew Olaf and Raston's boy, Tomov, are friends, right? Olaf followed Tomov when his papa took him to the waterfront, which he really shouldn't do, but you know what sort of person Raston is. The princess went after Olaf," Flora said.

"Bye, Tyra," Kristoff called back as he took off at a run.

The docks used to unload merchant ships were built on the castle island, in the deep water. The small dock on Arendelle's mainland was too shallow for anything but boat launches carrying sailors who were looking for taverns, and the occasional smuggled item. The village constables traveled in pairs to the waterfront, when they went there at all. The place didn't have real streets, just paths and alleys that grew up between the buildings. Once Kristoff got to the outskirts, he couldn't guess which way Olaf and Anna might have gone. He ran down one alley and then another, knowing that Councilor Gustav would take his head off if he found out that Anna had gone to the waterfront today.

He ducked back behind a tavern to avoid six men with knives who looked like they were following someone. Then he realized he ought to find out who they were following. He cut down another alley to get in front of them, and found Anna.

He ran up to her and grabbed her arm. "You are not supposed to be down here!"

"I had to find Olaf," Anna objected. "He went with a friend."

"We're leaving now. We don't want trouble," Kristoff said loudly.

"Who are you talking to?" Anna looked around and saw the ruffians. "Oh."

"Give us the girl's jewelry and cloak, and there won't be any trouble," one of them answered.

"That's not really an option," Kristoff said.

Olaf came running up. "Hey! You found me! Want to meet my friend?"

There was a minute when no one spoke and then one of the ruffians said, "That's the queen's snowman! This isn't just some rich man's daughter, friends. We've found the princess of Arendelle. She's worth more than a cloak and some jewelry. Your price for safe passage just went up," he said to Kristoff. He fingered the blade on his knife.

Kristoff pulled Anna around behind him. "If anyone here causes a problem for the princess, the Castle Guards may clean out this entire rathole. How about we trade safe passage for your chance to continue to enjoy this armpit of Arendelle?" Kristoff countered.

He was moving sideways, watching the door behind the ruffians where he could hear a fight. The tavern door was shoved open and bouncers threw out a couple of men, who crashed into the group that was threatening them. Kristoff ran, pushing Anna ahead of him.

"Are we playing fox and rabbits? I know where we can hide!" Olaf darted off down a narrow alley. The alley ended in a litter-strewn yard. Olaf was tugging at a door half-buried in the ground. "There's a cellar here."

Kristoff yanked on the handle and the door came away. "Get in! Quick!"

"Are there spiders in there?" Anna asked doubtfully.

"Yes, thousands of them. And they don't have knives! Get in!"

"Why don't you just fight those men?" Anna protested, still not getting in the cellar.

"There's six of them!"

"Why is that a problem?"

"Olaf! We need a hiding place above ground!" Kristoff said. "Fast!"

"I love fox and rabbits! There's an attic over here!" Olaf ran off.

"Why are we following Olaf?" Anna asked, picking her way quickly over broken barrels and decaying piles of wood and refuse.

"I don't come to the waterfront," Kristoff said. "I have no idea how Olaf knows where he's going, but I don't have any better ideas."

"Look! Here!" Olaf proudly pointed to a spindly staircase that led up to an attic above a small wooden building, boards weathered into grayness.

Kristoff looked at the staircase and decided to go first. If it would hold him, he knew it wouldn't collapse when Anna climbed it.

They made it. The attic was clean enough that Kristoff instantly realized the building wasn't abandoned, but it was too late to get back down the stairs and find another hiding place. Through the cracks in the floorboards, he couldn't see anyone below them. Light filtered in from the windows on both ends of the attic.

"Stay quiet and hold still. We'll get out of here as soon as those men quit looking for us," Kristoff said.

"Ew! I just walked into a cobweb! Ew!" Anna started rubbing her face and shaking out her skirts.

Kristoff decided the best way to get Anna to be quiet was to help her. He picked a dustball off her ruddy braids and brushed off her brown cloak. When he saw a spider running down her cloak, he flipped it onto the floor and stepped on it.

"What was that?" Anna demanded.

"A butterfly." Kristoff picked the one insect he knew wouldn't frighten her.

"You stepped on a butterfly? What sort of person steps on a butterfly?"

"Stop talking."

"No, I mean really, are there wings on the bottom of your boot now?"

He clapped a hand over her mouth and whispered into her ear, "Someone just opened the door downstairs. It's hard to hide when you're this loud."

She glared at him, yanked his hand away from her mouth and, very quietly, flounced away. Kristoff put his finger to his lips to caution Olaf to be silent. Olaf nodded.

Several men came in downstairs, talking loudly. Within a few minutes, the smell of a kitchen fire began to filter up through the cracks in the floorboards. More people came. The attic began to smell like fish. They couldn't leave until those men were gone, or they would get caught. It was likely to be a long afternoon. He hoped they could still get home before dark, otherwise that councilor was never going to let him see Anna again.

Kristoff looked over at Anna. She was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up and her head down. The soft brown wool cloak with the ermine lining on the hood was drawn tightly around her. He didn't think she'd had much fun today, and somehow that was his fault. Very slowly and quietly, he started to scoot his way over to Anna. The men downstairs were loud enough he decided to risk it. Anna needed some comfort. Maybe he could put his arm around her and tell her he was sorry for whatever it was he'd done wrong and assure her that next time would be more fun. Maybe she would put her head on his shoulder. It would all be very brotherly, of course.

He was almost there when Olaf waddled up. "Kristoff, I'm scared," he said, and climbed onto Kristoff's lap.

"Oh, you poor dear," Anna said, taking Olaf's hand.

Kristoff dropped his head back against the wall and blew a long sigh at the ceiling.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?" Anna offered.

"Oh! I love stories!" Olaf exclaimed in a whisper.

He settled himself more comfortably on Kristoff's lap. Olaf may have liked warm hugs, but he was a very cold creature.

Anna began her story. "Once upon a time, a bird fell in love with a fish. 'Beloved fish,' said the bird, 'I will bring you the greatest treasures of my world to win you in marriage.' The bird brought the fish a branch of blooms from an apple tree. The fish admired the soft petals and delicate colors, and admitted there was nothing in her world like that. 'Then will you marry me?' the bird asked. The fish refused. Next, the bird brought the fish a pelt of the softest fur imaginable. The fish admired it, and admitted there was nothing in her world like that. 'Then will you marry me?' the bird asked. The fish refused. The bird decided to bring the fish the most unique and beautiful treasure his world could produce. He wove a golden net from the threads of finest silk and captured a cloud. He brought the cloud to the fish. The fish admired the cloud in its golden net, and admitted there was nothing in her world like that. 'Then will you marry me?' the bird asked.

"The fish told the bird, 'I love you, and I love the riches you have shown me. But I am still a fish and you are still a bird. And while a bird may love a fish, where would they build a home together?' The fish swam away to stay in the sea where she belonged. The bird flew away, but never again did he find happiness in flight and sky like he'd known before he loved the fish, because those were the things that separated him from his true love," Anna finished.

Kristoff decided he hated that story. He knew an ice harvester didn't have anything to offer a princess, which is why he couldn't argue with the brotherly role she'd assigned him, but she didn't have to rub it in.

"Tell another one," Olaf demanded.

"Hold on, it's getting quieter down there," Kristoff said.

He hadn't paid any attention to them before. But as he and Anna fell silent, voices floated up from below them and he noticed something. "They've got Hamarian accents. That's strange. Hamarians come overland to Arendelle; they don't sail to the waterfront."

He laid down flat on the floor and put his eye to a crack. Anna joined him. She was so close that her arm pressed up against his and her green skirt fell over his leg.

"Look," she whispered. "They're ice harvesters. They've got boots like yours."

"They're dressed like ice harvesters, but they're not," Kristoff said.

"How do you know?"

"They're smoking. Ice harvesters don't smoke. You can't waste your lungs when you work at the elevations we work at," he said.

"I know that man they're talking about," Anna said. "Gerhard used to be on the Royal Council, but after Elsa's coronation, Captain Vilrun took his place."

Kristoff put his finger to his lips. They were getting too loud. Another half hour went by and then the entire group of them left.

"Let's get out of here," Kristoff said. "Olaf, take us back to the marketplace."

They made it. He got Anna back to the castle before dark.

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