Chapter Eight

Friday had finally come but the morning seemed to just drag on and on. I didn't have anything to do other than seeing the apples off, so I wasn't sure what to do with my time this morning. Anna and I had breakfast and once we finished, we sat there and talked about what we were going to do in the village. Anna was so excited, she rambled on and on about it and the people we would see.

"What are you going to do with your morning?" Anna asked quietly after we finished talking about the village. Anna had a look on her face, much like disappointment. " You don't have to be to the fjord until after lunch, right?"

"That's correct." I told her. The look of disappointment was still there and I was confused.

"What's wrong?" I asked. She looked up at me, the disappointment vanishing from her face. She smiled, but it didn't meet her eyes. She was putting up a mask.

"Nothing." Anna said.

"No, it's not nothing." I responded. " You looked disappointed."

"I wasn't." Anna said defiantly.

"Don't lie, Anna." I said.

"Fine!" She huffed. " I just figured...You know, you're just so busy all the time...Meetings and paper work and whatnot, I just figured you'd be busy with all that. It's selfish of me because...Well, we will have the rest of the day after the shipment but I just like spending time with you."

I stared at her for a moment, blinking as I tried to make sense of what she said. She was disappointed because she thought I had something else to do with my morning? I did have some paperwork that could be done, but after seeing the look on Anna's face I thought it could wait until tomorrow.

"As it turns out," I began. " I actually have nothing planned this morning." Anna's face brightened up considerably.

"Really? So what are you going to do?" She wondered. I sat back and thought about it for a moment. I wasn't sure. Normally I didn't have free time and on the few occasions that I did, I went to the library to read. What was there to do that we could enjoy together?

"I'm not sure." I said with a frown. "What do you want to do?" Anna thought for a moment, then looked up at me.

"Do you want to..." She looked almost afraid to ask. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth before continuing. "Do you want to...build a snowman?"

My blood ran colder than normal as fear surged through my veins. We hadn't built snowmen since we were children and I hit her in the head with ice. What if I did it again?

"Just a snowman." Anna said as if she knew what I was thinking. "We don't have to do anything else, just build one snowman with me. Please?"

"What if I hurt you again?" I whispered. Sudden tears threatened to spill from my eyes, but I held them back.

"You won't." Anna said confidently. "Please?" I was about to try to talk her out of it but the hope in her eyes stopped me. I imagined how disappointed she would be if I denied her. I couldn't bare it, I would just have to be really careful.

"Fine." I said, defeated. " We can build a snowman."

"Great!" She practically squealed in delight. She jumped up from her chair and grabbed my hand. "Come on, lets go!" She pulled me up and out the door. When we were kids, we always went to the ballroom. But Anna passed it up and kept going, part of me was happy. I still hadn't been able to face it, ever since coronation night.

"Where are we going?" I asked curiously, trying to keep up with Anna.

"Outside!" Anna responded.

"Where outside?" I wasn't one for surprises.

"It's a secret!" Anna said as she picked up her pace. Once we were outside she started leading me somewhere behind the castle, a place I've never been. Finally, we stood outside a wooden gate.

"Where are we?" I wondered out loud. Anna just smiled and opened the gate, causing me to gasp in awe. I stepped inside and looked around. There was a pond that was glittered beautifully, the water so clear that you could see the bottom; ducks swam peacefully, occasionally dipping into the water. Flowers of all colors grew randomly around the enclosed area where we stood and the whole area smelled wonderfully.

"Anna," I breathed. "I never knew this was here. What is this?"

"I found this place when I was younger." Anna said. " When you wouldn't answer your door and I got tired of talking to the paintings, I would go explore. I found this one day and I've never told anybody about it. Well, except Olaf, but only because he followed me. Now, I usually come here when I need some time alone."

"I'm sorry I was never there for you." I said quietly.

"I know." Anna said. "What's important is you're here now."

"This place is wonderful." I said, trying to change the subject. "Shall we begin?" I smirked as her excitement visibly grew.

"Yes! Do the magic!" Anna said, jumping up and down. My smile almost faltered. That's what Anna said to me when we were kids. I tried to ignore the guilt that rose inside.

'Uh, Elsa?" Anna asked. I noticed worry written on her face mixed with hope. I chose to focus on the look of hope. Anna believed in me, she was confident that I could do it without hurting her. I would just have to prove her right.

"Sorry, here we go." I raised my arms in the air and started with a small flurry.

"We'll need a bit more snow than that to build a snowman." Anna said, grinning. I smirked and made it snow harder. I was concentrating so much that I didn't hear somebody approach from behind until I hear Anna suddenly yell, 'Kristoff!', startling me. The pond froze over and little ice spikes formed around me on the ground at my fear.

I turned around to find Anna hanging off of Kristoff's neck. Didn't Anna say she hadn't shown anybody this place except Olaf?

"What are you doing here?" Anna asked, letting go of his neck.

"Well I saw the way you two were running and I had to come make sure you guys were okay." Kristoff said with a shrug. "You were going awfully fast. I was worried you guys may have been running from something." Anna laughed.

"No, we were just excited. Or, I was anyway." Anna said. She looked back at me. "I kind of dragged Elsa with me. Sorry..."

"No, I was excited too." I said, trying to ease her. "You just run faster than I do." Anna smiled again.

"So what were you two so excited about?" Kristoff asked. He finally seemed to notice the snow falling. "Snow?"

"Yeah, isn't it great?" Anna asked. There was enough snow on the ground that Anna fell back, giggling as she hit the snow and sunk in.

"Uh, yeah. But why are you making it snow?" Kristoff asked. "Winter's going to be here soon anyway." Anna was too busy rolling in the snow to answer, so I did.

"Anna wanted to build a snowman." I told him.

"Yes!" Anna suddenly jumped up. She leaned down and started packing snow together. When it was big enough, she started rolling it on the ground to make the bottom of the snowman.

"Guys, get building! We don't have all day." Anna said.

"Maybe I should go..." Kristoff started to say, but Anna jumped up and grabbed his hand.

"No, stay. Please?" She asked, then looked at me. "Can Kristoff stay and build snowmen with us?"

"That's fine." I said. Anna jumped on Kristoff again and hugged him. Suddenly a weird sort of angry feeling started to swirl inside of me like a red tide, trying to choke me. Was that jealousy? That was stupid, what was there to be jealous about? I shook my head and decided to ignore it.

"Ok, get building." Anna demanded. "Seriously, we only have until lunch." She went back to building her snowman and I smiled at how carefully she was constructing it. I looked over and Kristoff had started building one of his own, so I decided to start mine. I didn't want to disappoint Anna, after all.

Soon, I was really getting into it and all three of us were having a lot of fun. By the time we finished we almost had a whole tiny village of snowmen and even a couple snow cows and snow dog. I was patting the snow on the last snowman I was making when I suddenly felt something hit my neck.

I brought my hand up and felt my neck, realizing that It was a snowball. I looked up to find Anna standing there, her hands over her mouth to suppress her giggles. My eyes narrowed and I reached down, coming up with a sufficient amount of snow. I packed it all together and threw it at Anna. She laughed as she dodged it, reaching down to gather more snow.

As Anna was standing up she was caught off guard as she was hit on the side of her face with snow. Kristoff stood off to the side not bothering to hide his laughter. Anna stood, looking shocked, for a moment. Then she smirked.

"This means war!" She declared. Anna jumped behind one of her snowmen and I could tell she was making snow balls, preparing for battle.

I knelt down and started building a wall. If Anna was making ammo, I had to have protection. I built it with walls on the side because I wasn't quite sure if Kristoff was on anyone's side, or if he was against both of us. Better safe than sorry, I thought to myself as I finished it.

Next I began making my own snowballs, I had to be as prepared as possible. When I thought I had a good amount to start with I peered over my wall to see Anna and Kristoff at war. Kristoff made a good sized wall but Anna was just using her snowman, which left her completely open on my side.

I picked up a couple snowballs and hurled one over the wall. I watched as it hit her in the shoulder, causing her to startle. She must have forgotten I was there off to her side. When she noticed me she grinned, then darted from her current snowman to a better one. I threw my armful of snowballs one by one as she was changing snowmen, and only a couple hit her.

I grabbed another armful of snowballs and prepared for war.

When it was about time for lunch Anna and I dragged ourselves back into the castle to eat. Our clothes were soaked all the way through so we went to our rooms to change, then met up in the dinning room. We ate our food rather quickly, barely having time to taste it, before we were rushing out the door. Or rather, Anna was rushing and pulling me along behind her.

When we got closer to the Fjord I wiggled my hand out of hers, causing her to stop and look back at with confusion on her face.

"What's wrong?" Anna asked.

"How would it look if the queen was rushing around like that?" I asked, patting my dress to make sure it looked right. "Queens are expected to act proper, and running isn't proper for a queen."

"I guess you're right." Anna said thoughtfully. " I guess we could walk the rest of the way." The weather was beautiful, I noticed as we continued to walk. This was my favorite part of fall...Towards the end when the days were warm, sometimes chilly, and the nights were cold. Soon it would be winter and, of course, that was my favorite season.

When we arrived there were two of our larger sized ships docked. Men were starting to carry crates of apples onto the ships and I stood there for a minute. They were going to fill both of them with just apples? Whatever did they need so many for? As far as I knew, they were going to one of the smaller of the kingdoms. But I remembered that they didn't have good growing soil so they had to have most of their fruits and vegetables imported. But still, two large ships was a lot.

They noticed me walking towards them and all the men stopped what they were doing or put the apple crates on the ground, then bowed to me.

"Gentlemen." I said with a nod.

"Your Majesty." One acknowledged. I recognized him as the one in charge of the shipments.

"This is a lot of apples." I said, nodding towards all the crates that were being carried in. I hoped he would give an explanation.

"Yes, it is." The man said as he looked through the papers. "I have some papers for you to sign." He handed me the stack.

"All of these?" I questioned. I didn't realize there would be so much paperwork for a shipment of apples, no matter how large.

"Yes, all of them." He said and handed me a quill. "Excuse me, please." he turned away and started helping the other men carry crates.

"Paperwork?" Anna asked from next to me.

"It looks that way, yes." I responded. I flipped through the papers to see if any of them said why they needed so many apples. It looked like some sort of festival.

"This might take awhile." I said apologetically as I sat on a crate underneath a tree and started on the paperwork.

"That's okay." Anna said, sitting on the ground next to me. "I can wait."

I signed the last paper just as the man from before came up to me to inform that they finished loading the apples and were ready to set sail. I handed him the papers, he thanked me, then he got into one of the ships. Anna and I sat and watched the ships set sail, waiting until they were no longer visible before we headed to town.

The shipment took longer than I expected and the day was mostly done but we had a couple hours. Our first stop was the bakery. The girl at the counter seemed surprised to see us again, but didn't act quite like the last time.

"Your Majesty." She greeted. "Pleasure seeing you here!"

"The pleasure is ours." I said. "Your cookies were absolutely delicious last time." The girl blushed and started stammering, I smiled. "We would like some more, if you have them."

"Oh! Oh, of course!" The girl said, then jumped from her spot and got the cookies. She handed them to us and I handed her the money. She looked like she didn't want to take it, but she did, looking grateful.

"Thank you!" She said.

"No, thank you." I said, then Anna and I turned to leave. We walked around town, greeting people as we went when I overheard something. Some women were talking about a festival of some sort that was going to take place. Curious, I got a little closer so we could hear.

"Oh! My Queen!" One of them spotted us and bowed her head. "Princess Anna."

"I apologize." I said. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just curious to see what you were talking about."

"Oh the apple festival, of course." The other woman said. I was confused. There was an apple festival? How did I not know?

"Oh, I've heard about that!" Anna said suddenly. "I've always wanted to go!"

"What is it?" I asked, they all looked at me with wide eyes.

"You don't know what the apple festival is?" One of the women asked. I shook my head so she explained. "It signifies the end of fall and the beginning of winter. We set it up in the town square and it's all about apples. Candied apples, apple pie, apple tart, apple turnovers...everything apple."

"That sounds like so much fun!" Anna exclaimed excitedly.

"Will you two be joining us this year?" The first woman asked. Anna had said that she always wanted to go and she looked so excited.

"Of course." I agreed. "When is it?"

"Next Saturday." The second woman responded.

"As in tomorrow? Or the Saturday after that?" Anna asked.

"The one after." The woman responded.

"Great, we will be there." I said. " Anna, we should go if we're going to watch the sunset." Anna nodded and we said goodbye to the women. On our way to our tree, I saw a little boy out of the corner of my eye. Looking over, I saw that it was Simen.

"Hey Anna, Isn't that Simen?" I asked. The boy was holding a broom that was way too big and seemed to be sweeping in front of a shop, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

"Oh yeah, it is." Anna smiled. "He seemed to like me quite a bit last time we met."

"Yes, he did. You should go say hi to him." I said. "I bet you'd make his day." Anna's smile increased.

"Hey Simen!" She called as she started walking towards him. He looked up, dropped his broom, and almost fell back in shock.

"Uh...Hi." He said quietly, his eyes wide.

"How's it going?" Anna asked, kneeling down to his level.

"Fine." He said. "Just sweeping...What are you doing here?" He looked down and dug his foot into the ground.

"We were passing through," Anna said. She reached out and ruffled his hair, making his face turn a dark shade of red. "I thought I would stop by to say and say hi." Simen was staring at Anna with his mouth hanging open.

"Better close that mouth before flies fly in." Anna commented, placing her hand under his chin he pushed his mouth closed gently. I cocked my head, realizing how good Anna was with children. I could tell with her interactions with Simen that she was going to be a good mom.

"Sorry." He said, then seeming to remember his manners. "It sure was nice of you stop by and see me like this."

"It's no problem." Anna smiled. "But we should be going, I hope to see you again soon." She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, making him blush even deeper if that was possible.

"Uh. Okay. See you!" He said nervously, then ran up to the shop door and quickly went inside. I went up to Anna and smirked.

"I was right, I think you made his day." I said. "Did you see the way he blushed?"

"Yes!" Anna said happily. "It was positively adorable." We walked the rest of the way to our tree in silence, just walking and enjoying each other's company. When we made it I noticed more of the apples had fallen off the tree and were starting to rot. I spotted a bright red apple that was hanging low enough that I could reach it, so I reached up and pulled it from the tree. Knowing how much Anna liked apples, I handed it over to her with a smile.

"Thank you!" She said, happily biting into it. "Want a bite?" She passed it over to me. Shrugging, I took the apple from her and took a bite out of the side that she hadn't bitten out of yet. It was delicious, as the apples always were. They were one of my favorite fruits as well.

I handed the apple back and we settled down in the grass, facing the large body of water in front of us and stared off into the sunset. We didn't say anything for a couple of minutes, then I broke the silence and asked a question that'd I'd wanted to ask for quite some time.

"So what's up with you and Kristoff?" Anna turned her head and looked over at me.

"What do you mean?" She asked sounding confused.

"Well, are you two...you know...dating?" I questioned.

"Oh that!" She said, rolling her eyes. "No, we aren't dating. We kissed once when I gave him the new sled but then I realized that I would prefer to be just friends." I thought for a moment.

"You kissed him?" I asked, making Anna blush. "What was that like?" I'd never kissed anybody, but I always wondered what it was like. What it would feel like to have somebody else's lips against mine.

"I don't know." Anna said, her brows furrowing. "It didn't really feel like anything. You know when you read in stories and they talk about a spark that you feel when you kiss somebody? I don't think it's true, I didn't feel any spark when I kissed him."

"Maybe he just wasn't the right one." I said. "Maybe you have to find the right person and when you feel the spark you know it's meant to be."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Anna said, looking peacefully at the sky. "But when am I going to find the right one?"

"I don't know." I said shaking my head, "You could always-" I was cut off when Anna rolled over, looking at me angrily and at first I thought I had done something wrong.

"Nobody's going to want me when I went out and got pregnant without getting married first." Anna said, tears of anger threatened to spill from her eyes. "People probably think I'm disgusting."

"Nobody thinks that." I said with a frown. "Not that their opinions matter anyway. When the right guy comes a long, he won't care that you have a baby. He will love you for who you are." There was a sharp pain in my chest when I thought of Anna getting married to some guy. Would she leave the castle to be with him? Or would he come to the castle? I guess it didn't really matter who went where, as long as Anna was happy.

"You think so?" Anna asked. She scooted closer so she was right up against my side and she laid her head on my shoulder. Cautiously, I wrapped my arm around her and waited to see if she would tell me to stop. She didn't, so I left my arm.

"Of course." I said, even though it pained me to think of her with a man in that way. We sat there in silence until well after the sun had set and it was dark. At first I wondered if Anna had fallen asleep like that, but I saw her fingers playing with the blades of grass carefully.

"I think we should go back." I said quietly. "It's quite dark now. The staff will be worried about us." She nodded.

"I'm getting pretty tired anyway." She said. I stood up, pulling her with me and we made our way to the castle. When we got inside, Anna said she was just going to go to bed so I decided to walk her to her room. When we reached it, she opened the door and the first thing I saw was a large painting on the wall of a dragon breathing fire and a knight with a sword, trying to slay it.

"Did you paint that?" I asked in awe, it was incredible.

"Yeah." Anna said shyly.

"It's amazing." I told her.

"Thank you." She blushed. I smiled at her and noticed the dark circles under her eyes, she looked really tired.

"I'll let you get to sleep now." I said. I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek but she suddenly turned her head and before I knew what happened, our lips met. My head started spinning and a feeling of butterflies invaded my stomach. Her lips were so soft and smooth, time seemed to stop. There was a hand cupping the side of my face and suddenly I realized what happened.

Quickly, I pulled my lips from hers and my eyes widened when I realized exactly what I'd done. I just kissed my sister on the lips, I couldn't believe it. Anna was blushing and looked very confused.

"I'm...Oh goodness, I'm so sorry Anna!" I said, panic surging through my body. Before she could answer, I quickly turned and swiftly walked to my room. Slamming the door behind me, I sunk to the floor with my knees up to my chest. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes and hatred for myself. What must Anna think? She was probably disgusted.

Even through the disgust, I couldn't get over the feeling of her lips against mine and the undeniable spark that I felt when I accidentally kissed her.