Kristoff hurried Anna to his friends, the stone trolls.
"How do you know they'll be able to help me?" Anna was curled up in his arms as Sven galloped through the forest, her hair slowly turning white.
"Because I've seen them do it before." Kristoff thought back to when he was a small boy. He'd been helping the ice cutters do their job. He and tiny Sven worked hard to keep up, but they slowly fell behind and soon were alone. Suddenly two horses galloped past, leaving a trail of ice behind. Little Kristoff had urged Sven on, following. They came to a clearing in the forest, and the stone trolls had healed a little girl who'd been brought there by her parents and older sister. He'd watched as they unfroze her head by removing certain memories, and they warned the sister about her powers. He realized now that the parents were the late King and Queen of Arendelle, and the girls had been little Elsa and Anna.
They stopped in that same clearing and Kristoff and Anna asked the trolls for help. The troll king, Pabbie, came forward and examined Anna.
"Her heart is frozen. It's slowly freezing her."
"You can remove the ice, right?" Kristoff looked at him pleadingly.
"No, I can't, Kristoff. The only way to heal this is an act of true love; for instance, a true love's kiss."
"Anna, we have to get you to Hans." Kristoff lifted Anna again, and left the trolls behind.
Hans and his men stood outside Elsa's ice castle, at the foot of the stairs.
"Ok, listen men. We go in, we find Princess Anna, and we take the Queen prisoner. No harm is to come to either of them. Understood?"
The men nodded.
"Alright, let's go."
Jack alighted on a rooftop in a small town. He needed to clear his head. Why had Elsa struck her sister? Why did she want him to leave? And, above all, why oh why had he kissed her? If anything, it made the situation worse. He realized that he knew very little about her, only that she had ice powers and she had revealed them before running.
I don't really have much to tell North, actually. There's questions that need answering before I can return. Maybe I should just go back.
Jack rubbed his eyes. He wasn't cut out for this. His job was to make kids happy, not sit on roofs worrying about someone else's business. But he also couldn't just leave Elsa alone either. He stood up and caught the wind, headed back to Arendelle.
Elsa paced around the hall in her castle, fingers pressed to her temples.
"Control it. Don't feel it. Don't feel!"
The walls around her glowed red, reflecting her confusion and disappointment in herself. Suddenly the doors burst open and several armed soldiers rushed into the room.
"You are under arrest, Queen Elsa!" Hans' voice rang out loudly.
Suddenly a huge snow monster came up behind them and grabbed Hans, dragging him off. Two of the soldiers fitted arrows into their bows and aimed at Elsa. She blocked the first arrow with an ice wall and shot spikes at the soldier, hanging him by his jacket in the air. The second soldier she slowly started pushing towards the balcony with a block of ice. Her vision was flooded with a red haze. Then Hans came rushing back in.
"Queen Elsa! Don't be the monster they think you are!"
Elsa stopped the ice block and stared at him, breathing heavily. Hans saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and threw himself sideways towards the soldier stuck in the spikes, causing him to shoot the arrow that was meant for Elsa upwards, to the great chandelier. Elsa gasped and began running, barely escaping from under it as it fell. She tripped and lay there, tinkling bits of ice falling down around her. She felt a light touch on her shoulder and quickly sat up, ready to defend herself again. But the face that looked down on her in confusion was not a soldier's.
"Jack?!"
"Come here." She crawled into his lap and buried her face in his sweater, ignoring Hans, who was giving her weird looks. Then a voice spoke and the whole room went silent. Elsa felt Jack tense up and she lifted her head.
"I have come, Queen. Remember your promise?"
Elsa closed her eyes and lifted her chin, remembering. She didn't want to see the shock etched across Jack's face, so she stood and faced Pitch. He seemed a lot bigger, somehow. He held out his hand to her.
"No! Elsa! What are you doing?" Jack scrambled to his feet and aimed his staff at Pitch. Elsa stepped towards Pitch, speaking without looking at him.
"Jack. Remember this: I did it to protect you."
Her voice was lost as Pitch grabbed her around the waist and vanished. Jack stood frozen for a couple seconds before he melted and started racing around, yelling.
"Elsa? Elsa! Where are you?!"
Hans was staring at the spot where Pitch had been, his eyes wide in terror. Jack rushed over to him.
"Please, we have to find her back!"
Hans looked right through him, but one of the soldiers behind him gasped and stared right at him.
"Jack Frost! Quick tie him up!"
The rest of the soldiers suddenly seemed to notice him, and they knocked Jack's staff out if his hands and proceeded to truss him up. He barely resisted, too numb to realize what was happening. Hans looked surprised, before recognition dawned on his face and he leaned down and lifted the staff curiously. It shot a beam of ice at the wall, and he dropped it again.
"Take him along back to Arendelle. He may know where that black creature took the queen."
The soldiers lifted Jack and carried him out.