Chapter 4: Enter the Boreal Bandits

Kjerstin sat in the front seat of a small longboat. Six bandits behind her, with their hands ready on the oars. The boat was just a few yards from the rocky shore of a jagged point thrusting out into the Skagerrak straight. She clutched the red crystal, tied on a small leather string around her neck. As she clutched it, she felt a heat radiate down her fingers, through her arm and into her core. If she wanted to, at this moment she could create a fireball out of thin air. But this was not the time for fireballs—that would come soon enough.

The red crystal was not alone on her leather necklace, but was accompanied by a green one and a blue one. Both were glowing at the moment. She clutched the blue one and closed her eyes, for just a moment.

As she opened them, she turned to Johno, sitting in the first oarsmen position. "Our queen says the princess is on her way. You may be able to see the ship soon."

Johno pulled out a spyglass, extended it and scanned the coastline. "A few sails to the east. They'll hug the coast before taking out into the straight."

"Let me know when they change their sails to come about. We want to take them in the straight."

Anna was sitting below-deck with Olaf. She had taken it upon herself to find new ways to improve Arendelle's diplomatic prospects with the representative of Texas.

"So, Olaf. I take it you had a good chance to chat with Decker while you two and Kristoff were off gathering ice?"

"Oh, yeah! I was telling him all about Kristoff's ice business, and he was trying to give me lots of business advice. Apparently Mr. Decker is really good at business without really trying."

"Really? What sort of advice?"

"Oh… I don't really remember. I tried to translate it all for Kristoff, but I don't think he was really listening. To tell you the truth, I think he's let his promotion to Ice Master go to his head."

"I think he just didn't want to take advice from a guy he doesn't trust," Anna answered.

"Yeah. Decker's a nice guy. He just really wants to learn how to fly. I told him that I flew once, but that it was 200 feet downward off a cliff. He told me that doesn't count."

Anna thought about her brief experience with flight, being held over an expanding void, herself and Kristoff dangling by rope from the fingers of Elsa's snowmonster, Marshmallow. They were at his mercy until she cut the rope and began their plunge. It had only lasted a few seconds, and in that time she wasn't sure whether the feeling left her exhilarated or terrified.

She had trouble remembering what she felt because she was distracted by the fact that it was the first time she had used a real blade. When Anna was ten, she remembered talking to the painting of Joan of Arc, telling her about how her most recent spat with the courtyard's rosebush had left her new dress in tatters, and how she wished she knew how to sword-fight, so she could defeat the thorny bushes, or lead armies like Joan. Of course the painting hadn't replied, but the look on Joan's face seemed to say, anyone can lead an army and anyone can learn to swing a sword.

First Anna had asked her father to teach her to swordfight, but he replied with a simple smile saying that princesses didn't swordfight.

Second, she tried to convince a palace guard that it was time she learned how to defend herself, and on the Princess's Orders he was to teach her. The guard just chuckled and rubbed her head. "Okay, my little princess, here is how you swordfight. Follow me." He led her out to the courtyard underneath the willow tree and scrounged around until he found a nice springy stick. "The only thing to remember is that you poke the end into the bad guy," he said as he handed her the stick.

As he turned to return to his post, he felt a quick jab on his leg. Looking back, he saw Anna holding the stick like a sword. "I don't think you understand Princess's Orders. It means you have to teach me for real."

This time the guard didn't chuckle. He just shot Anna a dirty look for thwacking him and said, "Princesses don't swordfight."

Finally, she went to Elsa's door, and told it the story, ending with, "and they all said princesses don't swordfight. But you remember when we were little kids, and people would try to tell us what princesses can't do, but we would just laugh to ourselves because we knew better."

Anna heard some shifting behind the closed door, then an annoyed tinge in Elsa's voice as her older sister said, "Anna, you have to listen to Papa." After that, Anna trundled sadly to her own bedroom. But the next morning when she woke up, she found a book from the library tucked under the slit below her door. The book had a small note tucked into the cover, reading "Sometimes, we still know better". The book was titled Techniques in Fencing. That was the first day she snuck down to visit the suits of armor with her willow switch and book.

"So I told him that I would have to ask a seagull whether it really was the same. But he said I couldn't talk to seagulls, and I told him that I could tap-dance with them, and that was a first step." Anna was brought back to the present moment by Olaf's story.

Decker had fought for the independence, so maybe Anna could ask him about sword fighting as well as try to get him to do business with Arendelle. Well, no time like the present! "Alright Olaf, let's get above the deck so I can be a diplomat and maybe you can find a seagull."

Scuttle was sitting on the water, taking a short floating rest. He probably shouldn't be resting—after all he was on an official mission—but it was such a long flight across the ocean. He hadn't realized just how far it was, when he was trying so hard to get an official job to do for the wedding. "I know you're an expert on things people use, and things people do, but I don't think people are expecting a seagull to talk to them," the bride-to-be had told him.

He was disappointed, but he bounced right back when he heard the story of a small kingdom across the Skagerrak that had talking snowmen. "If they have a magic talking snowman, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a talking seagull. At least the snowman wouldn't—you see, it's a people custom to let magic things talk to animals," he explained. That line of reasoning seemed to work.

So he found himself floating, waiting for a ship. And was that one in the distance? He took to the air to get a closer look. Yep, that one had the purple-and-teal flags that he was looking for. And that ship was changing its sails to head out into the straight.

"Kjerstin, they're changing sails. They're heading out into the straight."

"All right oarsmen, take us out after that ship," Kjerstin commanded the crew of the longboat.

"But Kjrst, couldn't you use the fire stone, the same way you got us down here?" one of the oarsmen answered.

"Let me re-phrase. Bandits, takes us out after that ship."

The bandits, whose greatest strength was their stealth, silently dipped their oars into the water and glided the longboat on an intercept course with the ship from Arendelle. The ship was still in the distance, but headed their way. How many minutes would it be to intercept?