Anna drew circles in the dirt as the fire cast flickering shadows over their camp.

Today had been too close. She'd lost her horse, and if Hans hadn't been as quick as he'd been she could've lost a lot more. As much as she hated it, she needed Hans. Not just for navigation but as a fellow traveller. If they ran into trouble again… If they ended up losing Sitron too…

She rummaged through their pack's remaining supplies. She noticed Hans glance over from across the fire.

"Come here," she said, not taking her attention off the pack.

Her hands finally closed on the coil of wire she'd been searching for. As she drew it out, Hans flinched. Anna blinked at him.

Oh. He must've thought she was about to try and strangle him.

Anna smacked her forehead. "No, you idiot," she groaned. "Not everyone has murder on their mind like you. Give me your wrists."

He hesitated for a moment and then reluctantly approached. He held his wrists out, the chains around their cuffs clicking against each other. Anna inspected the key holes. Luckily it seemed to be a rather straightforward kind of lock. She bent the end of her wire into the appropriate shape and got to work.

After fiddling with it for a couple seconds, Hans spoke.

"I didn't know you were a lock picker."

"Eh," Anna said nonchalantly, keeping her focus on the small wire and equally small key hole. "I learned a thing or two here and there."

"The Crown Princess of Arendelle considering a career in thievery?"

"No…" she said. She paused before grabbing Hans' wrists to drag them into better light. "More like I never wanted to end up left in a locked room to helplessly freeze to death again."

Hans didn't respond to that. The pause slowly morphed into an awkward silence. Anna risked a glance at Hans' face. It was completely blank, neither eyes nor mouth betraying a single emotion. His freckles were the same as ever. His eyelashes, Anna also noted, were particularly thick and beautiful from this close…

It was completely unfair. Weren't all evil people supposed to be the ugly ones? All the authors of her favorite childhood fairy tales had a lot to answer for.

She turned her attention back to her work.

Perhaps this wasn't a good decision. There was a fair chance he'd try and kill her again as soon as the shackles were off. He'd stabbed that wolf like it was nothing. Same with the horse. She'd be no match for him if it came to a physical fight.

But at the same time, she reminded herself, he'd also saved her life. Why would he wait to slit her throat when he could've had a wolf disembowel her?

She twisted her lips in disgust at the mental image.

And of course, if another wolf incident did happen — or something just as bad where he needed his hands— then they'd both be dead, and where would that leave her?

If anything, her ghost would probably have to listen to his ghost gloat about it from now until eternity.

With a final click his cuffs were off.

Hans sat back, rubbing his newly freed wrists. There were red marks from where the metal had chaffed over the last four days.

"Thank you," he finally said, soft but clear.

"You're welcome," she heard herself saying in response.

He glanced around, seemingly regaining his bearings, and then his gaze focused on the wire in Anna's hands.

"Give that here," he said, holding out a hand.

Now it was Anna's turn to recoil.

"Please." He sighed. "Look, contrary to what you believe, I don't have murder constantly on the mind either. You want fresh meat for dinner? Then give it."

Oh. She'd been wondering what the wire's original purpose had been. It was trapping wire.

Anna briefly considering just handing it over and letting him do whatever with it, then tossed the idea away. She couldn't give him too much freedom too fast.

"Show me how to them set up," she said.

"No way," he said with a dismissive snort. "Your foot's injured, remember? You need to stay sitting, not go tramping all over the forest and hurt yourself more than you already have."

"Fine. Then just show me how to set up one."

"No."

"What you break your leg tomorrow? Or get knocked unconscious? What if the only way we can survive is for me to set a trap and I don't know how to do it because, Oh no! My poor ankle wasn't strong enough!" Anna swept her hand across her forehead in dramatic agony.

Hans rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," he said. "It's your ankle."

He stalked off and she cheerfully limped after him. She carefully watched as he scanned the forest floor.

"Are you looking for tracks?" she asked, still clutching the wire.

"I'm looking for trails."

"What's the difference?"

He regarded her disdainfully, as though only an idiot didn't know that bit of knowledge. Anna refused to blush or be embarrassed. She crossed her arms and waited for an answer.

"Tracks are evidence of one particular animal," Hans said with a sigh. He resumed his search. "Trails are evidence of multiple animals over the same course."

"Like a path versus a footprint?"

"Precisely."

After a couple more minutes of searching, Hans found one and pointed out the telltale signs to look for. Anna nodded along, only mildly seeing what was apparently obvious to him. He coached her through the set-up of the actual trap. Anna felt mildly guilty as she tied a loop across a narrow gap between two baby trees, but she was also very hungry. She tried to tell herself that it was no different from all the other rabbits she'd eaten before. She'd just know where this particular rabbit had come from.

Finally, with her ankle throbbing slightly more than she'd care to admit, she relinquished the wire to Hans so he could set up more traps as she limped back to camp.

He wasn't gone very long. Of the eight traps he ultimately set, two captured rabbits within the hour. For the second time that day he asked for her knife, but this time Anna shook her head.

"This I've actually got," she said looking at the carcasses dangling from Hans' hands. Kristoff had taught her how to skin rabbits, although she'd only done it once. "We only need the two. Go get rid of the remaining traps before they kill any more."

Hans shrugged and dumped the rabbits directly into her lap.

Their dead eyes stared up at her as she fought back an initial shriek of shock and then a curse at Hans' retreating head. Anna scowled briefly before beginning the dirty chore. She had the meat tied up and roasting on a spit by the time he returned.

Despite everything else that'd happened that day, Anna couldn't help but let out a soft moan when she finally unwrapped bit into one. After an entire two days of salted jerky, the tender meat was pure heaven.

"That good, huh?"

"Yesh," she said, not bothering that her mouth was full as she said it.

"It's not bad," he said between bites. Unlike Anna he ate with a sort of dining room precision, careful not to let any of the juices drip down his hands and onto his clothes. If they'd had a napkin, Anna would've expected him to pull it out and start dabbing the sides of his face.

"Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment."

Hans flashed her a quick grin and then resumed eating.

She didn't talk much after that. He didn't either. Simply eating and then sitting in each other's presence seemed to be enough as far as interaction went. If she thought too much, Anna began to remember the wolves and her poor mare, how she'd just sat there and let it happen, but sitting there by the fire, listening to its crackle as it echoed off the trees, she was able to slip into a thoughtless trance and just be.

It seemed to be enough for Hans too.

At last the fire started to die down and a chill swept through the bight air. Hans' shivered and then started to make his way to Anna's makeshift tarp structure. She considered yelling out that it was her tent, that he could go sleep with the horses again, but quickly scolded herself for the childishness of the idea.

Anna knew they'd have to share it sooner or later. It was just going to keep getting colder as the storm slowly caught up to them, and once the snow came, ordering Hans to sleep outside would be tantamount to suicide.

She didn't have to like it though.

Anna debated staying by the fire and keeping it tended throughout the night for warmth. If she did that though, she wouldn't get much sleep, if any, and she'd have to continually wander the forest for extra firewood. And even then, only one side of her would ever be warm at a time…

With a defeated huff, Anna slowly made her own way over to the shelter. Hans was already stretched out across its left side as she entered. She took up her own position on the right, trying to ignore his breathing as she kept her back to him.

"How many more days to the cave?" she asked as she shifted. The ground was cold and lumpy even through the tarp beneath her.

"Maybe one or two? It's hard to say now that we only have Sitron." In such close quarters, Anna could feel the reverberations as he spoke. "And then we'll have to climb part of the mountain."

"Mountain?"

"I told you. The stone's in a secret mountain cave."

"Secret mountain cave," Anna said with a yawn. "Of course."

"Hey. I wasn't the one who decided to put it there."

"Sure, you weren't."

They bantered a bit more about meaningless things. Whenever his responses got too rude, she'd elbow him lightly in the back. For once Anna was grateful for the prince's annoying voice; it took her mind off far more depressing things.

She didn't remember when she finally drifted off to sleep.


Anna woke in the blue, pre-dawn light to a sharp blast of winter air. The main tarp had snapped free of several of its ties and was flapping wildly in the wind. The fire pit was completely dead. Had been dead for hours. She could barely see the trees on the other side of their camp but already white flakes were beginning to coat them all.

The blizzard had caught up to them.

"Shit!" yelled a voice next to her.

Hans was awake.

Anna quickly went through their options: they could attempt to set up the tent again and try to sleep for another hour or two… or they could suck it up and just start moving.

Another blast of cold air hit her arms and Anna shivered.

Start moving it was.

"There's no sense staying here!" she shouted to Hans. Already the wind carrying her voice away, making it hard to communicate. "Come on. Help me pack up!"

The wolf attack had certainly been the turning point for something. It was somewhat unsettling how quickly Hans seemed to listen to her now, but she wasn't about to complain. They had their stuff packed up and Sitron saddled in record time. Hans swung up behind her and they were off, letting the outwards push of the storm guide them to the south.

Anna was incredibly grateful now to have Hans behind her. The icy wind stung her face, her hands… she stuck them underneath her cloak and let Hans do all the steering. If the prince noticed how she leaned back at times, attempting to shelter herself with his body as much as possible, he thankfully didn't say anything.

It wasn't perfect though. With the extra weight on Sitron's back and the wind and the quickly accumulating snow, Hans had to get off every now and again to give Sitron a rest. He held Sitron's reins with one hand, burying the other beneath his clothes.

At one point, Anna got off and tried to lead, to pull her own weight, but it didn't work out. Hans was taller, his legs longer. Where he stepped easily through the snow, Anna struggled to lift her knees fully up and over. The snow fell so fast and cold that it froze in layers of icy sheets rather than the fluffy powder she was used to back home. She had to slam her heel down to break through, and she could only use her one good foot to do so.

Hans let her flounder for barely five minutes before ordering her back up on the horse.

They spent most of the morning like that, twisting and turning through the woods, Hans hopping on and off like irregular clockwork. Or at least Anna assumed it was still morning. It was hard to tell time when the sun was blocked out by the clouds.

Hans was off again, leading about three feet in front of Sitron when she heard a tell-tale crunch.

Her eyes snapped wide. By habit, her hands reached out and yanked back on the reins near Sitron's mouth. The horse reared back onto safe ground as a cornice cracked apart beneath her.

"Look out!" she screamed.

It broke off from the cliff's edge. Hans fell with it, and her heart threatened to leap out of her chest.

Ohhhhh no. No no no no no no no.

She took a couple of split seconds to survey her surroundings. The ground had been gradually sloping up over the course of the past hour. They'd passed the tree line about twenty feet back. In front of her, even taking into account the snow, there was nothing. Pure white nothing.

Shoot! How could she've been so stupid?!

She slid off of Sitron and carefully made her way forward. Who knew how far up they were? How steep and tall the cliffs were? If Hans had truly fallen… If he'd just died and she was stuck here…

Alone…

She leaned over and spotted the top of his orange head through the whiteout.

"Hans!" she cried out in giddy relief. He'd managed to clutch onto the side of the cliff face about twenty feet down. She gave a quick silent prayer of thanks. "Just you hold on, okay?! I'm going to grab the rope and toss it down! Whatever you do, don't let go!"

"Of course! Because I really needed you to tell me that!" he shouted back.

At least he wasn't seriously injured. That was good.

She rushed over to Sitron and dug through the pack for their rope and ice axe. Keeping a safe distance from the edge, she stamped down a patch of snow with her good foot until it was nice and compact. Then she slammed the ice axe down into it, pick first.

Now she was left with the tricky part…

How did she set it up again?

Extremely conscious of her sole traveling partner currently dangling on the side of the cliff, Anna tried and failed several times to set up the boot-axe belay.

Rope went parallel to the axe… then back and around her boot… Yes!

Mostly confident that she had it right this time, she tied one end of the rope several times around her waist and then carried to rest over to the edge.

"Don't grab on until I say so!" she yelled down. "Otherwise we're both dead! Oh! And when you grab onto it, you're gonna to have to try and lean back and sort of walk up!"

"Wonderful! Just hurry it up!"

Anna half-limped, half-ran back to the axe and crouched down into position. If she had this wrong—

"Now!" she yelled, her hands gripping around the rope.

Anna was yanked forward as Hans weighted his end of the rope. She managed to catch herself as the fibers burned against her palms.

Oh God, he was heavier than she'd thought. Taking a deep shuddering breath, she readied herself and began to pull. Left hand went forward, and then dragged back. Right hand grabbed the new position. Left hand went forward again… and then back…

She let herself fall into the slow rhythm and ignored the ache building in her back. She was grateful for the thick winter boots she'd brought with her from Arendelle.

And Elsa had lectured her for bringing them, saying that they'd just be wasted space in her luggage.

Hah!

At last she managed to pull Hans up over the top. She fell backwards into the snow as he let go of his side of the rope. He fell to the ground as well, clearly exhausted from the effort of holding on. They both laid there, panting, trying to regain control of their lungs as the blizzard continued to howl.

Hans slowly looked up and stared at her.

"You… you saved me…" he said in disbelief.

Anna stared back at him.

"Well, yeah," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand and a brief laugh. "I mean, it's not like we're on a critical mission to save the world together or anything like that."

Anna picked herself up and began untying the rope from her waist. Her hands hurt and her fingers were numb, so it took longer than she would've liked. Hans was still staring at her with a strange sort of dazed look on his face as she pulled the ice axe out of the snow.

"Oh, come on already," she snapped. "Before this whole cliffside falls out from under us."

She tossed the supplies in Sitron's pack and led him back down to the tree line. Hans silently followed.

"I thought you knew where we were going!" Anna said once they were beneath the branches and better sheltered from the wind.

"I did!" he said. "…I do!" Sitron let out a snort, and Hans glared at his previously loyal steed. "You're not allowed to give me that look."

Anna nearly screamed in aggravation.

"Look! I am not going a step further in this godforsaken storm until I know exactly where it is I'm walking. I don't care about your secrets! I need a map. Now!"

Hans crossed his arms and grumbled under his breath. He looked up at the sky, seemingly at war within himself, and then he grudgingly snapped off a twig from the nearest tree and began drawing a crude map in the snow.

"This is where we are," he said pointing to a random spot next to some squiggles. "And this is where we should be going."

Anna squinted, trying to make sense of the thing.

Hans had many skills. Map making wasn't one of them.

"Well," she said. "Your 'where we are' is definitely wrong, since you just walked us off a cliff."

"Almost walked us off a cliff."

"Oh, my deepest apologies," Anna said in her stuffiest princess voice. She splayed her hand against her chest. "Almost."

"It you don't have anything constructive to say, then don't."

Anna started to stick her tongue out at him, but the cold made her instantly retract it. She returned her attention to his pathetic map instead.

"What are these?" she asked, pointing to the squiggles.

"There's a natural pass that should lead us down straight into the final valley," he said, tracing their length. "The mountain with the cave is on the other side."

"And these?" she asked, pointing to some other nearby markings.

"Streams. They connect to the main valley river here."

Anna surveyed the entire map and frowned.

"Well," she finally said. "Based on these cliffs, we didn't hit your pass. We can either try to find it, which — in this blizzard — will be like trying to find coal in a cobblestone street, or, using the cliffside as a handrail, we can keep going east until we hit this stream here. It might not be as pretty as the pass, but it should still get us down."

"And if there are waterfalls?"

"Then at least we'll know where we are again."

Hans was silent. His eyes swept over his map as his lips twisted in annoyance.

"Fine," he bit out. "I suppose if that's the best you can come up with."

"Excuse me?" Anna scoffed. "I don't hear you coming up with anything."

"The best we can come up with," he modified.

Anna was still a bit disgruntled but took it as the only apology she was going to get.

"Better" she said.

Hans scuffed out the snow map with his boot as they left. Anna sighed at his paranoia. The falling snow would've fully covered it up within the next twenty minutes. Maybe less.

Still, Hans was being as agreeable as she could expect him. She could grant him a little leeway as far as paranoia went.

They set out on a new trail, parallel to the cliffside. She and Hans stayed alert now, always careful to stay within the tree line and far away from any hidden cornices, until they came to the small stream that Hans had drawn on his map. It had already frozen over with the storm. They followed it as it twisted and turned down into the valley.

Her luck finally start to kick in. There were no waterfalls or steep drop offs, and the deep snow made it somewhat easier to plunge step their way down.

The stream met up with the valley river at the bottom, and the ground leveled out again. Hans and Anna wandered up and down the river's shores until they found a giant tree that had fallen across, making a solid natural bridge. Sitron needed some slight coaxing, but with some minor effort they were over and safe on the other side. With no cliffs or cornices in sight, it'd be mindless trekking from here to their final camp at the base of the final mountain.

Anna's thoughts started to drift again as she tried to ignore the numbness of her toes. When they finally brought back summer, Anna made a vow to hop into a sauna and then never ever ever come out…


They set up their final camp at the base of a steep mountain. Anna's luck was continuing to hold out; a couple of large trees had fallen next to some large boulders. Combined, the group of objects would serve as a good natural walls for the night's shelter.

Anna handed over the trapping wire to Hans with no protest this time, and he wandered off to catch dinner as she began digging out and piling up snow for extra insulation. She tied their main tarp over the top to create a nice little ceiling, started a fire near the entrance, and — by the time Hans returned — thought she might actually be getting some feeling back into her outer extremities.

She'd made the shelter big enough for Sitron that night. He laid down and Hans and Anna leaned against him as they ate, his skin warm against their backs.

"So. Almost there," she said between bites. "How far up is the cave?"

"Not entirely sure," Hans replied. He paused to pick out a bit of stray meat from his teeth. "The book never gave directions in terms of actual distances. It prefered cryptic passages about turning left at the rock of the falcon and nonsense like that."

"Explain to me why I agreed to go along with you in all of this again."

Hans smiled, the light of the fire catching in his now spotless teeth. "Because you, like me, had no other choice."

"Yeah," Anna said with a deflated sigh. "I was worried it was something like that."

Hans chuckled at that. Not his hollow chuckle. Or his dismissive chuckle. Or his "I know more than you do" chuckle. But rather an honest-to-god, genuine chuckle. It was warm and rich and made the skin around his eyes crinkle ever so slightly.

Anna didn't like it.

She turned her attention back to her rabbit.

"If I had to guess though," she heard Hans said. "I'd say… three thousand feet? Give or take."

Anna's heart sunk.

"And I don't suppose we can take Sitron with us?"

"Nope. On foot from here on out."

As if on cue, Anna's ankle throbbed. She winced at the thought of trudging up three thousand vertical feet on it.

"If my ankle gives out," Anna said. "You're carrying me the rest of the way up."

"Done," Hans said automatically.

Anna stared at him. "Done?" she repeated. "Just like that?"

"Of course. We made it this far. I'm not letting something as silly as a sprained ankle stop us."

Us. It felt weird hearing him refer to the two of them like that. A weird, silly feeling. After all, they were working together. It was only natural that Mister Thirteenth Loner Prince would start including himself as part of a team, and still…

Anna didn't like it.

She finished the remainder of her rabbit and tossed the stick it'd been roasting on away.

Sticks.

That reminded her.

"I need you to go out and grab sticks. Long ones. As straight as you can find. And with as many leaves still attached as possible. We need…" Anna paused, doing the calculations in her head. "At least 50? 60?"

Hans stared at her like she'd just grown an extra head.

"You want me to go out in this," he said, referring to the blizzard now howling above them. "For sticks."

"Well, they're more than just sticks. They're markers. In case we get lost."

"…markers."

"Yeah, climbing markers. Think of them like breadcrumbs. We have this huge rope, right? So we tie ourselves to either end. You know where we're going so you'll be in front, and that means you can carry them. I follow after you. Every time I get to one of your markers, I'll stop and that'll be your signal to stick another one in."

"Hmm…" Hans said. "So even if it's a complete whiteout, we'll be able to find our way back. Not half bad… Did your mountain man teach you that?"

Anna glared at him darkly. "His name is Kristoff."

"Christian. My apologies."

"Kristoff," Anna corrected.

She knew Hans was messing it up on purpose by the smirk he gave her in response.

"Very well. I'll risk my life for your sticks."

Anna smiled at him cheerfully as he left their camp with a half-hearted scowl. She waited in silence before trying to talk with Sitron, but the horse was already asleep.

She didn't have to wait too much longer. Hans had made his opinion about gathering sticks in the middle of a blizzard at night clear, and he got the task over with as quickly as possible.

Anna nodded in approval as he dumped the sticks at her feet and collapsed next to her.

"I suppose these are acceptable," she said, examining one in detail. Her heart swelled at the dirty look Hans gave her in response. She grabbed a couple and tossed them in his lap. "Here. Help me snap off the branches from the bottom of these."

"I thought you said you wanted all the leaves you could get," Hans muttered.

"At the top, yeah. At the bottom they just make it harder to stick 'em into the ground."

Hans shook his head, but got to work. With two pair of hands, the task went quickly.

"We'll have to take turns sleeping tonight," she heard Hans say as they finished stripping the last few. "We can't let the fire go out. Do you want to take the first watch or…"

"I'll take it," Anna said.

Even after their cooperation of the past two days, she was still uncomfortable falling asleep next to him. Not only that, but a frisson of anticipation coursed through her.

By this time tomorrow they'd have the stone. They'd have what they came for and this sudden winter would be just one more thing of the past. If Anna tried to go to sleep now, she just knew she'd be lying awake for hours.

Hans, it seemed, didn't care about the order of their shifts. He simply turned to his side and fell asleep against Sitron right then and there. She supposed it made sense. The three of them were curled up next to each other and the fire was roaring just a couple feet away… it was as warm and cozy as they were going to get that night.

That left Anna alone with nothing but the fire for companionship.

The night dragged on.

Anna wondered what Elsa… what Kristoff was doing at that very second. Had Aunt Primrose's message gotten through to Arendelle? If it had, Anna could just picture it now. Elsa would be battling her way across the seas to get to Corona. She'd be using her powers of course, freezing waves before they got too huge and wild to capsize her ship.

Or would that just end up creating icebergs?

Anna prayed that — wherever she was — Elsa was safe. Maybe the message hadn't gotten through yet and Elsa had no idea the blizzard even existed. Maybe the most serious thing on her mind was yet another petty argument with her ministers over ice delivery regulations.

She much preferred that to the thought of Elsa surrounded by deadly icebergs. Even if it meant that Anna was on her own.

Well. Not completely on her own.

Anna glanced over at Hans. He was sleeping peacefully, his back moving slightly as he breathed and his lips parted ever so slightly. His sideburns, which used to be trimmed with the utmost precision, had grown rather ragged over the past several days. Stubble coated the bottom half of his face, painting a ghostly outline of mustache and beard. She hadn't even noticed it until now. Anna wondered what it'd be like to…

She suddenly had a silly urge to pinch Hans' nose and see how he'd react.

She quashed it down.

That sort of behavior and the reaction she half-hoped for belonged to the "old" Hans. The "old" Hans that wasn't even the "old" Hans because there'd never been any "old" Hans, just the "fake" Hans and she hated the "fake" Hans.

And the "real" Hans.

Would hate for as long as she lived.

Anna crossed her arms and turned back towards the fire. It was going to be a long shift.