"What happened? What made him change?" asked Anna as she sat with Kristoff and his troll family.

"The Wendigo happened. Well, the first one happened," said Kristoff as he set one of his younger troll relations up on his shoulders.

"You keep saying that, and that he made a deal with it, but I don't understand how a deal could turn him into one of them," said Anna.

"It was a potent deal, a dark fellowship that the Wendigo struck between them," said Grand Pabbie as he came over to join them.

Anna turned her scowl on him. "And I don't know why you didn't just stop him from the start! I know you have power; I've felt it more than once. What have you been doing up here?"

Grand Pabbie's expression didn't change. "I have been keeping its taint from infecting the land itself, or would you rather risk more of their kind running free, such as the Maras (A kind of Scandinavia She-Werewolf) do now?"

Anna's scowl grew. "I've met a couple Maras in the last few months and they were both wonderful people."

Grand Pabbie grumbled and went on. "Then perhaps the Draugr (Scandinavian Undead); how about them? Imagine if their wraith and powers could pass to the living?"

"I get it! I get it," said Anna with a sigh. "I know what you mean. It's up to us to stop it. Stop him."

Kristoff reached over to her and pulled her into an embrace and she nuzzled into his arm.

"I am sorry I cannot do more. Were my hands not bound it would have never entered this land," said Grand Pabbie before he turned to leave.

"Your hands are bound?" asked Anna, but Grand Pabbie had already vanished into the mass of trolls around them.

"Forget it, it's just something he says; we need to focus on finding a way to stop Hans," said Kristoff.

"Well how did you stop the first Wendigo? Maybe we can do that to Hans!" said Anna with a grin. "I mean, you've all been so quiet about it, well, you haven't, not really, but the soldiers and Hans were quiet about it."

"That wouldn't work. Hans stopped it before, and that's only because it didn't expect him to attack," said Kristoff.

Anna sulked. "This is the third time you've alluded to what happened and not told me a single straightforward answer. What happened before?"

A/N: Yes, right in the middle. The following is exposition, pure and simple. I couldn't think of a way to tell this side of the story earlier without giving away the twist and to tell it now in its full, multi-chapter glory would break away from the tension we (theoretically) already have. Enjoy.

"Not much to tell. Hans broke away from the group, grunting that he'd found something. Well, I think that's what he said. Anyway, I followed after him and together we found a trail of carnage that went deep into the woods. I thought that the soldiers were following us, but looking back I'm certain that they didn't show up till the end.

"Anyway, Hans scoured along the ground until he was at a massive cave in the cliff that I'd never seen before. It seemed pretty obvious that this was where it had holed up the past few weeks, so I wanted to wait for the soldiers to catch up with us so we could all strike together. Hans must have been impatient, since he just barged into the cave, sword drawn. I followed after to save him or ensure a quick death if it got him.

"When I finally caught up to them, I hide in a crevice in the cave to keep it from just killing me right off the bat. The thing was, instead of killing him, it spoke to him. At least, I think it spoke to him. I couldn't understand it, mind you, but the sounds it was making weren't just growls and roars. They had a rhythm behind them, a rhyme and reason to the noise.

"Then it touched him and a sort of silvery light passed over Hans. The scars on his face frosted over and he started laughing. Then he drew out his sword and leapt to attack him."

"He had a sword?" Anna asked before Kristoff could go on.

"Yeah. He wouldn't've been very helpful otherwise. Anyway, he leapt up and attacked the other Wendigo and started hacking him to pieces, throwing each piece off as far as he could once he loped it off. I think it tried to heal as he went since it oozed out that same black ichor that Hans did before but he must have been too fast for it.

"In no time at all it was a headless, twitching wreck. It didn't stop moving till he cut out its heart, and even then the heart just kept beating. After that he came over to me, slammed me against the wall and broke my legs. Then he ripped off a chunk of my skin, dragged me outside, tied me up, gagged me and then threw me into a bush.

"Sven had run off by that point, I think that the smell of the Wendigo was too much for him. In any case, Hans came back sounding like me and I think that's when they carried the Wendigo out of the cave. That night my family found me and I've been recovering under their care ever since." Kristoff leaned back and waited for Anna to respond.

"So how did he know how to kill it? Did he figure it out when you entered the cave and just not tell you?" asked Anna.

Kristoff shook his head. "I think that he got everything in one big dump once it turned him, that's the only thing I can think of. That being said, I don't think that there's any real way to stop him. He knows what we did to hunt them, so he can avoid that."

"So nothing you did against him work? The original Wendigo, I mean," asked Anna. She'd heard a few tales of their struggles against the Wendigo from some of the other solders, but nothing specific.

Kristoff shrugged. "We didn't see it much, and the few times we did see it, nothing seemed to stick. Wounds would just ice up, or do nothing at all."

"The silver at lunch cut him and bled out," mused Anna.

Kristoff chuckled. "Then all we need to do is manage to get close enough to him to cut him apart with a silver knife. Anna, unless you happen to have another Wendigo on your side, I don't think that'll be possible."

Anna grinned. "Then prepare to be amazed, Kristoff, for I have a plan."