Her rooms below deck were well appointed, of course. While they may have been officially referred to as the royal suite, it was immediately obvious that the rooms were too particular, too personally decorated, to have regularly housed anyone but Hans. The wood of the ship was a deep mahogany, and the furniture and decorations on the walls tended towards dark reds and blues, with brass accents and the occasional splash of silver. There were windows, shut tight against the ocean spray, but not too many at this level. It was a stark contrast to the pale stone and lighter wood of the castle, with its abundance of wide windows and bright painted walls.
It was very...masculine, she decided. And just a little surprising. A room on a ship wasn't the same as a bedroom in a castle, of course, but these were the only chambers of Hans' she'd ever seen. Arendelle might not have been his kingdom, but he seemed utterly comfortable in it. So much so that she realized she'd had an unspoken assumption that the spaces he occupied outside of Arendelle must be very similar to the ones she knew, or else how could he be so at home?
Maybe he was just very adaptable, or maybe he just didn't really care what his bedroom looked like. Anna's had always been done up in pinks and yellows and pale greens, with huge windows letting in the sunlight. She loved the brightness and sense of space. How might Hans want the royal chambers appointed when they were to finally share them? Maybe she should start thinking about this.
Still, here on the ship the deep, rich colors were rather comforting. In a way she felt she was in a cavern, which was wonderful because caverns were on land. She could almost pretend if it weren't for the subtle shifting of the floor beneath her. And though she hadn't been on a boat in years she was already adjusting to the gentle undulations of the vessel.
Once she had sailed fairly often. Arendelle was a port city, after all, and she and her parents traveled regularly for vacations and diplomatic trips. In fact, her father had been teaching her how to man a small yacht before his death. Even if they had died by an accident on land rather than at sea, she wouldn't have had the strength to continue without him. But even after so long it was clear something had taken, and she walked across the room on steady legs.
The roiling waves outside her window, however small, caused a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, and she drew all the curtains and lit a lantern for light instead. Thoughts of her father couldn't help but leave a bitter lump in her throat these days, so to distract herself she began exploring the room.
Everything was secured for the voyage. There were many books, more than she thought she could read in years, and she recognized very few of them. From the look of them all had been read at least once, and many were well worn, though not as badly as her favorite childhood storybooks from the castle library. Some were textbooks on political theory, history, economics, diplomacy, and war exercises. Even as the thirteenth son Hans was well versed in every aspect of politics, and she was suddenly embarrassed by how often she had complained about her own studies.
There were also what appeared to be epic adventures books, again not at all like the fairy tales Anna was used to. Many seemed to stretch across multiple volumes. Even in the depths of her own boredom on extended journeys she couldn't imagine having the patience for such long stories, but then Hans was very clever and well read, and it's not like there were too many other distractions on a ship.
There was a globe securely fastened to the desk, and a number of maps laid next to it, their corners tucked under leather straps so they wouldn't slide with the motion of the ship. The maps were well marked with many neat, color coded annotations that meant nothing to Anna but had clearly taken Hans a lot of time. She admired the care in his cramped handwriting, and imagined him hunched over the desk in the middle of a voyage, working intently. Maybe with the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth, which it did sometimes when he concentrated. She giggled.
In the corner was a shield, clearly meant to be decorative, and a number of swords, which were not. There was a simple foil, which looked to have seen its share of fencing matches. A colichemarde was next to it; even without pulling it from its sheath she recognized it from the drastic thinning of the blade after the fullers. And last of all was a rapier. He kept one with him at all times, just in case he ever needed to add it to his costume for some official duty, so this must be a spare. She pulled it carefully from its sheath and held it out. Her pose was a fencing pose, better suited to the foil, but it let her feel the weight of the blade. She thought of the skill Hans surely used in wielding it, and of the strength in his arms, and blushed.
There was a rough knock on the door. "Come in," she called, lowered the sword. Kristoff entered, blinked at the weapon in her hand, and dropped himself into a chair.
"Got Sven settled," he said, voice strained. "I think I'm already getting sick."
"Aw." She sheathed the sword. "It's worse below deck though. Maybe you should go get some sun."
"Are you coming out?"
"No," she said. She meant to add Not now, but it died on her tongue because of the implicit lie. She was alright here, where she couldn't see the ocean. She'd be just fine.
Kristoff nodded roughly and hunkered down in the chair like he expected someone to rip him out of it. His lips were locked so tightly they were white. It was everything she could do not to laugh.
"Kristoff. Seriously. If all you're going to do is sit here and get sick, go above deck. Then you can at least throw up over the railing of something."
He sat there a good ten seconds more out of sheer stubbornness. Then he gasped, "I'llbebackgottago," in one long breath and disappeared.
Then there was nothing to do but settle into the tedium of travel.
She hadn't thought to bring books of her own, so she passed the time browsing Hans'. The adventures were too involved and drawn out to hold her interest, and she was bored almost immediately with the textbooks. Then she noticed that Hans made notes in the margins of the pages, like with his maps, and entertained herself with flipping through just the find the annotations. Sometimes they led her to other books, like "Tzu p. 149" or "Prince p. 28," and some were just short phrases like "silk?" or "cannons, gunpowder." None of it made any sense to her, of course, but she felt like she was sharing something with Hans all the same.
When she wasn't reading she thought. This was dangerous. Sometimes she thought of her parents, trying to divine any clue of what they had been hiding from their behavior. She found in her memories a discomforting amount of avoidance and deflection, but it was hard to say which were honest memories and which were discolored by her present sense of betrayal.
Mostly though she thought of Elsa. She tried very hard to remember everything of their childhood she could, to the point where she was sure her mind was making up stories just to give her something more to dwell on. She turned then to what they might find in the little village, on the mountain where the Snow Queen was said to dwell. If they found anything at all.
She imagined Elsa, tall and fair. In her best thoughts Elsa recognized her at once, and ran to her. She had wanted to come home the whole time, but couldn't, maybe because she was scared, or maybe because she'd hit her head as a child and couldn't read maps anymore, Anna didn't know. Maybe she had hit her head and lost her memories, and even if Anna knew her she'd know nothing of Arendelle or her sister, and Anna would have to explain everything. Sometimes in this scenario Elsa not only didn't remember anything, but also looked completely different from the woman in Anna's imagination, and they passed each other on the road and never knew.
Sometimes, after she had abandoned the adventure books yet again but still had a head full of otherworldly warriors and fantastic creatures, she'd think instead of the Snow Queen. A powerful sorceress, her hair full white instead of pale blond. Maybe her skin had turned blue as deep ice, and she had an army of snowmen at her beck and call. Was that who Elsa had become?
She thought also of arriving and finding out it was only stories after all, that there was no Snow Queen and there was no Elsa. These thoughts made tears prick at her eyes that never quite gathered the weight to fall, but she forced herself to dwell on them. She wanted to be ready when...if it happened.
Then she thought of finding Elsa after all, but learning she had abandoned Arendelle willingly, and didn't care about her kingdom or her crown or her sister. In her thoughts Elsa was cold, sneering, disgusted by her pleas, and turned away. Anna was suddenly overtaken by choking sobs at the idea, and spent too long thinking of anything else under the sun to try and bury the thought before finally giving up and resolving to think of nothing at all for a while.
Kristoff came by when he could, but it wasn't often. He was desperately prone to seasickness, which they really should have figured out before setting out on the voyage, and could only spend a short time below deck before he was overcome. Anna supposed she should have gone above with him at least a little, but it was safe and comforting in her rooms, so Kristoff had to come to her instead.
At the end of the first day he staggered in and said, "I think I hate boats."
On the second he said, "Next time I get up a mountain I'm never coming down again."
On the third he said, "Sven threw up all over the hold. They made me clean it."
On the fourth he said, "I threw up on the deck. I hate boats. I can't believe you brought us out here."
On the fifth he said, "I hate you." She knew he didn't mean it when he said, "No, really, I mean it," and slammed the door behind him.
On the sixth day they docked, ahead of schedule. The Colichemarde's speed had delivered. Anna kept her eyes very firmly on the pier as she went down the gangplank, and sighed at the touch of her boots on solid land.
"That wasn't so bad," she said to a staggering Kristoff and an equally wobbly Sven. They shot her twin dirty looks.
"Your Highness," the captain, a stumpy man named Hagen, called. For just a moment she was nonplussed at her old honorific. But of course, "Your Majesty," was typically reserved for monarchs, and the captain was surely more used to addressing Hans. "I understand we're to wait for you here."
"Yes," she said. "Stay here in town; open any purchases you need under the seal of Arendelle, and I'll settle once I get back."
"Very good," he said gruffly. His face was well weathered by the years at sea, and it always looked just slightly incongruous for formalities to come out of his chapped and twisted mouth. She suspected that he was a much rougher man than she had so far seen, and that Hans had instructed him to put on his best behavior.
"Well," she said, turning to Kristoff and Sven. "What now?"
Kristoff ran a hand down his face and sighed. "Sled. For Sven." He glanced around. "If we can find one to rent, then Sven can take us the rest of the way."
"What about on the way back? If we have an extra passenger?"
Something very much like doubt flickered across his face, and she was glad when he held his tongue. "Won't be a problem. He's used to hauling ice, and all we'll have for supplies are some food and clothes."
"Then let's find a sled."
It was more difficult than she'd thought, but eventually she flashed enough gold to procure a smallish sled from a ratty looking merchant who had almost certainly bilked them badly. Kristoff watched the merchant hurry away with narrowed eyes, then unwound a leather tie from his bag and held it out to her. "Here."
"What?"
"Put your ring on it. Hide it in your dress or something. Just in case."
"Oh." Yes, that was for the best. She slid her engagement ring on the leather band and tied it around her neck, tucking it underneath her dress when she was done.
"Your clothes are nice," Kristoff said, looking concerned.
"They're perfectly normal."
"For a palace."
"Would you feel better if I ran through some brambles and fell into the mud?"
"Maybe." Then he rolled his eyes at himself and said, "Then again, you're probably going to do that anyway." She jabbed him, and he chuckled.
"How long do you think it'll take?" she asked. He pulled out the worn map and studied it.
"She's got a good route marked. Say a day and a half of travelling, just in case. It's mid afternoon; if we stay here at an inn tonight, we should get there late morning in two days, and have plenty of time to look around."
"We leave now," she said, and he rolled his eyes but didn't argue.
—
She'd considered herself well traveled, but it quickly became apparent that visiting palaces and châteaux in various kingdoms didn't really count as seeing the world. The bare paths and tiny villages along the route were completely new to her, and for the first time she felt woefully underprepared. They had been lucky to find a town large enough for an inn at the end of the first day, and she shared a room with several strange women while Kristoff did the same with some men.
The next day Kristoff said that they should reach Jokikylä shortly before nightfall. The morning ride was silent, until Anna said, "You don't think we'll find her, do you?"
Kristoff let out a careful breath. "No," he said simply.
"But you did. Otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."
"I did. For a moment." He ran his tongue across the insides of his cheeks.
"But…?"
"You started to believe it. And I thought…" He rolled a shoulder in a half shrug. "I thought I shouldn't, just in case."
"That's…" She turned her eyes skyward, thought hard for a long moment, and finished, "...so dumb."
"Hey!" he cried. "I'm trying to help you."
"You are helping me! But did you seriously change your mind just because of what I think?"
"Uh…"
"Don't you trust my judgement?"
"Yyyyyyyy...es?"
"You hesitated!" She shoved him, and he squawked and batted at her.
"Driving here! And I was just thinking about whether or not you've ever shown bad judgement around me, okay?"
She blinked. "Well. Have I?"
"Yes," he said immediately. "More times than I can count."
"Wh—"
"There was the time with the cake," he said. "Thank you, by the way, for forcing me to wash vomit out of my hair. And that one time you wanted to make stilts, and the bicycle race, and the broccoli experiment!"
"Oh yeah? Well what about the time you tried to teach me to ice skate? That wasn't my idea!"
"That would have gone great if you weren't terrible at skating!"
"The ice was too thin, Mr. Ice Master!"
"You went the wrong way!"
Anna threw herself back in her seat and crossed her arms. "You deserved vomit in your hair."
The look Kristoff sent her was so utterly horrified that her lips instinctively twitched. She trembled and tried to hold in the giggles, until he said, "And you deserved the ruined dress."
She couldn't help it. She was laughing, deep, gasping, body shaking laughter that almost hurt. Kristoff was laughing too, and Sven was so excited at the noise that he kept trying to look back and steering them off the road. Kristoff snapped the reins to guide him back into place, and they eventually quieted down.
She felt light now. Her thoughts had been too heavy on the ship, too heavy for a long time now. She tipped her head against his shoulder and said, "Thank you."
"What?" He shook his head. "I didn't do anything." She sighed and didn't bother to correct him. He always said that, but as long as he was there, it was enough.
—
"The Snow Queen?" the man asked. Jokikylä, as it turned out, was too small for an inn. Kristoff thought they might find information about accommodations at the tavern. Anna just wanted information, but was beginning to despair of finding anything useful.
There was one solid bit of information that everyone seemed to agree on: the Snow Queen lived somewhere in the peaks of the northmost mountain surrounding the village. They'd also learned that the mountains was extremely deadly, with terrible storms that could spill into the village, regular avalanches, and more souls lost than could be counted. Half the people they talked to blamed the Snow Queen. The other half didn't seem to care about the dangers at all, and instead talked about her beauty or her magic or how they had absolutely met her once, out in the snow. It was immediately obvious almost every one of them was lying, and even the ones who may have begun with a grain of the truth quickly buried it under outlandish exaggerations.
This man was one of the latter. After several minutes of very blatant and poorly worded innuendos he seemed to expect to go over Anna's head, Kristoff cut him off with a sharp, "Okay, thank you," and headed to the bar.
"Well," he said as they settled into stools, "she's either the loosest woman on the continent or some kind of horrible ice witch. So that's fun."
"She's neither," Anna said immediately. But she thought of some of her own more fantastic visions of the woman they called the Snow Queen, and got just a little nervous.
"Is that really why you came?" someone asked. They turned to see a young woman, tearing off bits of bread and feeding them to a small boy seated next to her. "For those stories?"
"Not if they're only stories," Anna said miserably.
The woman studied her clothes, and Anna wondered if they were too fine after all. Then she shifted her focus to the bread for a moment, and said, "They're not. But I also think they're not what you're expecting."
Anna gasped, and Kristoff said, "Can you tell us more?"
"Who you want to talk to is Mirjami. She's the healer, and treats those that come down from the mountain. She's in the furthest hut to the north."
"Thank you," Anna said, stumbling over the words in her excitement. "Thank you so much." There was a small orange in her bag, and she pressed it into the hands of the boy, who grinned in delight. After fumbling a moment more she came up with a few gold coins, and passed these as surreptitiously as possible to the woman. Kristoff nodded to them both and chased after Anna as she fled to the door.
"North!" she exclaimed as she burst outside. "Okay so that's—"
"Anna!" Kristoff took her arm and sighed. "It's full dark now, and we don't have anywhere to stay. She'll be there in the morning."
"Or maybe if we go tonight, Mirjami will tell us where we can stay."
He studied her. "You're going with or without me, huh?"
"Yep."
He huffed. "Fine, fine. Sven!"
—
It took two passes to find the healer's hut, which was tucked well away from the rest of the village in a forested area. Anna wondered at the usefulness of a healer who was so far removed from her patients, but if the mountain was as dangerous as everyone said maybe she wanted to be closest to its victims.
The woman who opened the door had a calm but no-nonsense demeanor. She didn't pause before waving Anna and Kristoff inside, but seemed to be withholding judgement until they spoke.
Though Kristoff had been fairly engaged earlier in the evening, he fell silent here, so Anna took a deep breath and said, "We've come a very long way looking for information about the Snow Queen." There. She hadn't said she was a princess, or what kingdom she was from. Kristoff said that was for the best.
"Now, what could a grown woman like yourself want with that silly story?" Mirjami asked, wandering around the small room to gather supplies for tea.
What indeed? Would the truth do here, or was it too dangerous? Kristoff wasn't giving an indication either way. "I lost someone I cared about a very long time ago," Anna said slowly, carefully, "and when I heard these stories I thought I might have a chance to find them again. But if I don't...I just wanted to know for sure, so maybe I can finally stop looking." Kristoff was staring at her, and she pointedly refused to meet his gaze.
Mirjami set the kettle to boil and gathered some tea leaves. "Used to be around here when someone got lost in the mountains, we knew they were gone for good. I don't think people quite know what to think now that they're coming back down, somehow. It ought to be a blessing, but it's just shameful the stories they end up telling."
"We heard some of those stories," Kristoff grumbled.
"But there has to be something behind it, doesn't there?" Anna persisted. "I mean there's so many people talking about this Snow Queen, she must be…"
Mirjami made a disgusted face. "Shameful," she said again, "that they spread such rot. There's no such thing as the Snow Queen."
"What?" There was such a ringing in Anna's ears that she didn't know if she or Kristoff had asked the question. The girl at the tavern had said it was more than stories, hadn't she? There must be something. There had to be. They'd come so far, after so long; she didn't have anything but this.
"Lots of people in the village say she exists," Kristoff said quickly. "Why would they all be telling the same story if there wasn't really anyone up there?"
"There is a woman in the mountains," Mirjami said, "or a person, at least. Maybe someone who has seen her closer knows its a woman, but I only have my own eyes, and they've never gotten a good enough look."
"Then what have you seen?" Anna asked, aware of the broken note in her voice and not able to do a thing about it.
Mirjami thought for a long moment while she set the tea to soak. "There's someone in the mountains, but she's a robber, not a witch. She's not alone up there, I don't think, but I don't know who might be with her. All I know is this: Three years ago people started being brought down from the mountains. They often end up at my door, since I'm as close as I am. They're always near death. Some of them don't make it, and some of them look to have been wounded and beaten around the head. But almost all of them have been robbed." She leaned back in her chair and studied Anna and Kristoff closely.
"You said you've seen someone though?" Kristoff asked.
She nodded. "Through my window sometimes, dropping the next one off. She doesn't bother me, and I don't bother her. I let her get on her way, and then help them best I can."
"But she's a thief." Kristoff rubbed his hand through his hair, his face screwed up in confusion. "If you've seen her, shouldn't you call a constable or something?"
"I'm a healer," Mirjami said. "I don't care if they lose their wallet, so long as they keep their life. I'll tell you what I see: people brought down from the mountain, frostbitten and frozen, who would have died if they'd been up there an hour more. Whoever this person is, she's a vulture. She preys on those who have already fallen victim to the mountain, but for their money she'll save their life. That seems a good trade to me."
"What does she look like?" Anna asked. "When you…"
"I can't tell much. She's bundled up against the cold, and it hides most things." So that was one strike against the idea of the Snow Queen. "Her hair is dark, where I've seen it." And that was a second.
"What about the blizzards?" Kristoff asked. "People talked a lot about that."
"People are fools," Mirjami said bluntly. "That mountain's no colder than it's been my whole life, and my mother's and grandmother's. It's less deadly now, not more, and that's because of the robber woman, not some ice witch."
A third strike. There was nothing here after all.
No. No. She had thought there was nothing to be found in the mountains of Arendelle, and there had been. Now there was a woman in these mountains, the mountains where she was searching for her sister, and it didn't matter what the healer said or what the woman looked like. She wasn't giving up again.
Maybe Mirjami saw it in her face, because she suddenly leaned forward. "Look here girl, I don't care if the person in the mountains is a robber or a murderer or a witch after all or an angel committing a penance. They've done a greater good than the people in this village can understand. You're looking for someone who's lost, aren't you?" Anna nodded timidly. "You go up in those mountains and you'll be the one lost. And if you are delivered to my door, you'll be less your coin and less your will besides. Do you still want to go?"
"Yes," she said immediately.
The healer hummed and leaned back. "Then you'd best pray you're as good a hunter as the woman in the mountain."
—
She gave them tea after that, and some rolls to sleep on in exchange for some gold. The next morning she cooked them breakfast and guided them to the base of the mountain. Anna left even more money in a small bag on her table, since she had done more than her share to help them and odds seemed high they were going to get robbed anyway.
"Are you ready for this?" Kristoff asked once they were again alone.
"Absolutely," she said. "I've been ready for years. How hard can climbing a mountain be?"
He laughed.
By noon it was patently clear that Kristoff was made for climbing mountains, and she was not. They were making good enough progress, but she was sore and winded and honestly had no idea where to go.
"I'm having fun!" Kristoff said cheerfully. "Aren't you?"
"Oh, shut up." She stuck her tongue out, and then panted. "Do you have a better plan?"
"There's a plan at all? I thought we were winging it."
"Of course there's a plan. The plan is to explore the mountain until we find Elsa."
"Ah. See, that sounds a lot like not having a plan to me."
"Yeah, well, that's just Plan A." Her foot was buried in a particularly deep snow drift, and she struggled to get it loose.
"Is there a Plan B then?" Kristoff tugged her up and set her on a firmer area.
"Plan B is where we almost freeze to death and that's when the robber woman finds us and takes us to Elsa." She brushed some snow off her cheeks. "See, Plan B kicks in automatically when Plan A fails, so really we're completely covered."
They walked in silence for a while more. Then he cleared his throat and said, "So, say we find her…"
"Good, Kristoff!" she cried. "I like this line of thought."
He rolled his eyes. "I meant the general 'her,' you know, whoever that is. Could be the robber woman."
"Aaaaaaaaand you ruined it."
"We find 'her,' and...she looks like your sister."
"Okay, this is picking up again."
"Except we don't actually know what your sister looks like because it's been thirteen years."
"Dropping back down a bit."
"How will you know?" he asked. "I mean we have an idea of what she might look like, Snow Queen and everything, but really? What'll make you sure?"
"She's my sister," Anna insisted. "I know my own sister." He gave her a thoroughly unimpressed look, and she sighed. "I'll...ask her some questions or something, I don't know."
"Like?" he prompted.
She bit her lip in thought. "Like...what was our nurse's name. Or our favorite food. Um. How our bedroom was decorated?" They'd played together all the time; surely she could use that somehow. "Ooh! I could ask her what we named our snowman!"
"You named your snowman?" Kristoff smirked. "Isn't that kind of pointless? They melt, you know."
She sniffed imperiously. "I wouldn't expect you to understand the bond between sisters."
"Still don't see what that has to do with the snowman melting."
"It was Elsa's idea," she said rolling her eyes. "So she'll have to remember it, right?"
"We can hope." He looked around and sighed. "Anna, you know we can't actually cover the whole mountain, right? It could take weeks just to get to the peak if it's dangerous, and who knows how many little nooks and crannies it might have?"
She'd thought of this at least a bit, and didn't have an answer except a pit of worry in her stomach. "We don't have to search the whole mountain," she said optimistically. "Just the part where Elsa is."
He nodded thoughtfully. "You're terrible at plans. I may never let you make a plan again."
She sighed, drew in a deep breath and shouted, "Elsa!"
"Whoa! What?"
"Well you didn't like Plan A, so we're modifying it." She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Elsa!" again.
Kristoff shook his head. "What makes you think that could possibly work?"
"Well, no one else seems to know her name, do they?" She shrugged. "Maybe they can't find her because they don't know who they're looking for."
He scratched his head. Then he cupped his own lips and yelled, "Elsa! Come out so your sister won't keep yelling and cause an avalanche!"
"Hey!" She frowned and looked around at the snow. "Is it really going to cause an avalanche?"
"No, but please stop yelling."
She made a face and shouted, "Elsa!" again just to annoy him.
—
Elsa!
Elsa!
The larks knew the name. It breathed life into their bodies, lived deep in their magic. Someone was calling for their mistress.
Elsa!
They were messengers. And they had never been given such a clear message. One after another they took to the sky, flying with purpose.
Elsa!
—
Olaf was playing with the hounds; or they were playing with him more like, bits of him at least, snapping at his arm as he flung them for a round of fetch, or sometimes tugging them right off his body to run around with. He chased them, alternately laughing or concerned depending on how viciously they were tearing at the twigs.
Jonne had been distracting them with thrown sticks of her own for a while, but the game had lost its fun, and now she sat with Snowy and watched them play. Her knife flashed between her fingers as she twirled it. On a whim she flung it towards the snowman, and it sunk neatly into his back.
Snowy snapped to attention and bounded over to Olaf. "Hello there!" Olaf reached out to pet Snowy, mindless of the fact that the wolf was trying to get to the knife in his back, and for a minute or more they turned in circles around each other.
Jonne laughed. "Olaf, hold still a moment, won't you?"
"Oh, okay." With the snowman still, Snowy was finally able to snap at the knife, tug it free, and bring it back to Jonne.
"There's a good dog," Jonne said, thumping the wolf on the rump. That's why Snowy was her favorite.
"Are you guys playing a new game? Can I play?" Olaf wandered over, and Frosty—or Chilly, it didn't really matter—snapped off one of his arms again and carried it away.
"That's all the game was," Jonne said, and abruptly stood up. "I'm going inside though, and you're welcome to come along."
"Ooh! We can play with Elsa!" Olaf trotted merrily after her, the hounds at his heels.
"If she'll have us," Jonne said.
The truth was that Elsa had been busy lately, distracted in something she didn't seem quite ready to share with either or them. It wasn't like the grand ice displays she used to make. This project of hers, whatever it was, involved more reading and drawing and what looked to be maps. Jonne hoped it was a plan to get them off this damned mountain. Never mind her own boredom; she didn't like the stories they'd been telling in the village, and knew that if it bothered her, Elsa was likely acutely distressed. 'Course, it wouldn't be a problem if Elsa didn't have such old fashioned ideas about 'home' and 'stability' and all that nonsense. But then Elsa had her reasons for the things she did, and Jonne tried to never have any reason at all, so in the end she listened to Elsa.
When they got home though Elsa wasn't doing anything more interesting than organizing the piles of pillows and furs that always ended up strewn around the castle. She smiled when they came in, before looking to Olaf with a frown. "Olaf, where's your arm?"
"Oh, you know, around." Chilly—Frosty?—darted past him, and he pointed with the one twig that was left. "There it goes! Hey, so, theoretically, if I ever did lose an arm, could you make me a new one? I'm not quite sure how that works."
"Please go get it," Elsa said in lieu of answering, and off he went.
Jonne sauntered up. "I've got something for you."
"Hm?"
She quickly smeared a snow flecked glove across Elsa's cheek, then laughed and rung an arm around her neck when she squawked and tried to squirm away.
"Thank you," Elsa huffed. "You're in a good mood."
"Or a poor one I mean to improve."
"Can't you do something useful? Are the dishes clean?"
"This is how you mean us to spend our time? Really?" She loosed Elsa and stepped away, making a face so the other woman would know not to take her seriously. "Who are you looking to impress?"
"Well, you never know when the reindeer are going to wander by," she said airily. "I hate to give a bad impression."
"Are we having guests?" Olaf walked up, intact once again, and looked between them eagerly. "That's what this place needs, you know, more people!"
"We've already got more people than we meant too," Jonne said, and flicked his nose out of place.
"And we're very glad we do," Elsa said firmly. "Olaf, could you help me gather my papers?"
So she had been working this morning after all. Jonne followed after them, not making a move to help, but eying the books that were scattered around.
Olaf gathered two or three, but was soon distracted by a picture of wildflowers and ended up flipping through the pages instead. "Oh, aren't these lovely! I wonder what color they are?"
"Purple, yeah?" Jonne knelt next to him. "Those were in our garden when we were kids, weren't they Elsa?"
"It's generous to call it a garden." She looked down too. "Crocus. That's right." She gently closed the book and took the stack. "Would you like to see those flowers, Olaf?"
"Of course I would!" He lumbered to his feet, nearly dancing with excitement.
"Well," Elsa said. Then she stopped, considered, and just smiled. "Maybe one day."
"They grow in the snow, don't they?" Jonne asked, following Elsa again.
"They grow through the snow. Their roots are in the ground, same as any other flower. They're a symbol of rebirth."
"And here I just thought they were purple," she mumbled to Olaf, who giggled.
Elsa put her books away, turned, made to speak, and paused again. Jonne thought she might finally be done brewing whatever it is had been on her mind for so long now. "I was thinking—"
Before she could finish, there was a flurry of noise as the larks suddenly burst into the room. Jonne ducked on instinct, and instead of flying at her face they shot straight over her head.
"Ha!" she crowed as she rose, but her smile died when the lark ignored her completely and instead circled Elsa. They hadn't ever done that as far as she could remember, and after three years their routines were certainly set.
Elsa was clearly baffled too. She held out a hand for the larks to alight on, but only one did briefly. They brushed her cheeks, landed to clutch at the fabric of her dress, flew in tight circles around her hair. Not even in the fiercest storm were they so desperate, and when Elsa's gaze met her there was a sliver of fear lacing it.
"Stay here," Jonne said at once. "I'll go out and see. Here, you fool things, take me, won't you?"
"They want me," Elsa said thoughtfully. "And I'm the one with the powers, aren't I?
"You couldn't hurt someone with those powers of yours if you tried."
For a moment storm clouds gathered in Elsa's eyes, blocking out the worry. "I seem to manage it well enough without trying."
"S'why it's best you don't go seeking trouble then. Better as defense, isn't it?" She slapped her cap on headed for the door. "Olaf, hold down the fort."
"Okay," he said, unnaturally subdued.
"Take the hounds at least," Elsa called. Jonne nodded sharply and whistled. The wolves were at her heels and the larks, acquiescent at last, led them to the cavern and towards the path down the mountain.
Though she would never had admitted it in front of Elsa, it was excitement, not fear, stirring her blood. Too long every day had been like every other. Now at last she had no idea what to expect, and it was thrilling. If there was a fight to be had she was itching for it; if there was some danger she would overpower it.
Elsa had her magic and her intellect to protect her. In this she didn't need Jonne or anyone else. So it was simply for the challenge that it would bring that she bade the wolves, "Stay here. Guard," at the lower entrance to the cave, bringing only Snowy along for company. The bracing mountain air brought a savage grin, and she looked to the larks. "Alright then. Lead the way."
—
Really? she thought, and cursed the larks all over again.
Jonne hunkered in some brush. It was hard to disguise yourself on the slope, and hard to travel across the snow without the crunch of the ice giving you away, but she'd had plenty of practice and it didn't look like the travelers had seen her.
A young woman, her clothes too fine and new for such rough terrain. A man alongside, obviously hardy and used to the slopes. And a tame reindeer, if such a thing could exist, following behind.
They weren't in distress. They weren't hurt. They weren't armed. They didn't even look particularly well off, which might have at least made them tempting targets. They were simply wandering without clear aim and bickering like children. At this distance Jonne could only hear the tone, not the words, but she recognized the cadence of the argument well enough.
Well. If they were lost then she'd have to help them eventually, but she wasn't about to step forward with herself outnumbered and the travelers in seeming good health. She preferred her pickings a bit more assured than that.
"Damn fool birds," she muttered and carefully stood, keeping well out of sight.
Perhaps they'd heard her, because suddenly there was a wet splat as one flew directly into her cheek. She bit down a swear and staggered, barely managing to keep from stumbling from her hiding place. Then there was another impact, and another, the whole flock bombarding her. Without intention she was shouting, staggering; when the larks withdrew at last she found herself in the open, staring at a woman, a man, and a very confused reindeer.
—
"Hello," Anna said instinctively. Instantly Kristoff's hand was on her shoulder, squeezing painfully hard. She knew why. A woman in the mountain, with dark hair? They only knew those two facts about the robber woman, of course, and it wasn't much, but this woman did match both.
Still. Anna had the idea from the stories Mirjami had told that the robber woman was...stealthy. Crafty. How else could she have gone so long without being discovered? No one in the village save the healer seemed to know about her at all. This woman had just burst from the brush, under attack by what looked like a flock of birds, and now stared at her and Kristoff as if she didn't know how any of them, herself least of all, had gotten up the mountain. It wasn't exactly the image of the ruthless bandit queen the stories had drilled into her head.
The woman blinked, and then raised her arm in greeting. "'Lo," she said, and Anna was almost instantly charmed.
"Do you live on the mountain?" she called. The question seemed to shake the woman out of her confusion, and she straightened.
"No," she said. "No one does. 'Less they got a wish for a slow death, I suppose."
Before she could respond, Kristoff was tugging on her desperately. "Anna we don't know who that is," he hissed.
"She might be able to help us," Anna whispered back.
"Or she might kill us and rob our corpses."
"Please, that's not how it works up here."
"Maybe she's in the mood for trying something new!"
Anna ignored him and called, "I'm sorry, but we're a little lost. Do you know this mountain very well?"
"Passing well," the woman said reluctantly. Anna took a few steps closer, but she withdrew and toyed with the knife at her belt. "You're needing the way down? This is a dangerous place, and you ought not go wandering around."
"Then what are you doing up here?" Kristoff said. His voice was colored by suspicion, and Anna could have hit him. Even if she wasn't the robber from the stories, she knew the mountain, and they needed that. They couldn't scare her off now.
"Hunting," she answered shortly.
"Without a rifle?"
She scowled. "Haven't you ever heard of traps?"
He crossed his arms. "Traps usually hold the animals, don't they? I think yours need some work."
Her face twisted further, and she abruptly spun away. "Go on then, get lost and freeze to death for all I care. I've no time for the likes of you."
"Wait!" Anna called, desperation leaking into her voice. "Wait, please, I need…" Maybe it was just her exhaustion, or the realization that she could spend months combing the mountains and not getting close to Elsa at all. But she was too tired for half-truths and trickery, and she didn't care a bit if it got them robbed after all. "Please," she said again, "My name is Princess Anna of Arendelle, and…"
Next to her Kristoff groaned in exasperation and threw his hands into the air, but that wasn't what had stopped her. At the sound of her name something had flashed across the woman's face, and even though she was obviously trying to hold it blank now, Anna had seen it clear as day. Recognition. "...And you know who I am!"
"What?" Kristoff asked, but the woman just thinned her lips and remained silent.
"You know my name!" Anna persisted. She stepped forward again, and though the woman didn't move back, she did hold the hilt of her knife more firmly. "Don't you?"
"Suppose I'm just surprised to meet someone daft enough to believe themselves a princess in a place as miserable as this," she said. The tone was clearly meant to be casual, but there was a strain in her voice that she couldn't quite shed.
"Then I suppose you're going to tell me you don't know of my sister, Princess Elsa." Anna was barely a body length from the woman now and decided it was best to stop outside of the range of that knife.
This time there wasn't even an attempt to hide her reaction. The woman sighed deeply, closed her eyes, and slumped. Then she straightened and looked at Anna, eyes sharp and bright. "Can't say she's ever called herself that where I could hear."
"Where is she?" Anna demanded at once. "Where's my sister?!"
"I don't know," the woman said, "but I could find her. Go to the foot of the mountain; I'll—"
"No!" Anna snapped. "You're lying! I know she's up in this mountain."
"Anna—" Kristoff reached for her, but she jerked away, stalking towards the woman. In a flash the knife she had been playing with was in her hand, pointed towards Anna's throat. Kristoff jerked her back and pulled out his ice axe, wielding it like a weapon.
"So, this is going well," Kristoff said. "How about we all put our weapons away and talk about this like civilized people?"
"There's nothing to talk about," Anna said, her eyes locked on the woman. "She's taking us to Elsa. Right now."
"You're a damned short-sighted fool," the woman snarled, "and I can't tell you what that means coming from me. You know a name and nothing else; if I know what you think I do, then you ought to trust my word and wait at the bottom of the mountain."
"And I'm telling you I won't!"
"Please," the woman said. It was enough to bring Anna up short. "I'm not asking for my sake. You're supposed to be a ghost, thirteen years gone, and I don't know what'll happen now that you're here." She swallowed. "All I'm asking is a little time."
It was such a reasonable request, and one Anna knew she couldn't possible entertain. Not now. Not when they were so close. "I can't," she said. There was an apology in her words. "I can't wait anymore. It's my sister. And I am not coming down from this mountain without her." For a moment they stared at each other, everyone rigid with tension. Then Anna drew back her shoulders, opening her chest into a clear target. "If you want to stop me, you're going to have to stab me."
The woman cursed, spit, then cursed again, a string of profanity the likes of which Anna had never heard. She then fell to her knees, stabbed the ground several times, and flung a loose handful of snow towards Anna and Kristoff for good measure.
"Fine," she said, and called Anna a few more choice words. "Fine. Come on, Your Highness, and let's see if you haven't fucked up entirely, hm?"
She climbed to her feet and whirled, heading further up the mountain without waiting to see if she was being followed. For a moment the release of tension was so complete that Anna felt almost faint; then Kristoff was at her shoulder, shaking her.
"Anna, I swear if you ever invite someone with a knife to stab you again, I'm going to stab you," he said. "Or, okay, I'm not going to stab you, I'm going to watch you get stabbed or maybe get stabbed trying to help you, and either way I'm probably going to cry and it's going to be terrible, so there."
"Trust me, I don't want to do that again," she said. "Now come on, we're going to get left behind."
—
They had barely started their journey when what seemed to be a white wolf trotted from the bushes to walk next to the woman.
"Is that wolf made out of snow?" Anna asked.
"Oh my God, she's real," Kristoff mumbled.
She looked at him. "After all this did you think she wasn't?"
"Honestly I kind of thought she was just taking us somewhere else to stab us," he said. "I kind of still do." He looked at the wolf again and covered his face with his hands. "She's real. She can make snow creatures and she's real."
"She's real," Anna said, and suddenly the doubt she hadn't even realized was still weighing on her dissipated. She was wonderfully, impossibly light; she felt she could climb a thousand mountains, if she knew they would bring her to Elsa.
The woman led them to what seemed to be a cliff face. There were snow drifts all around, and in front of Anna's eyes they solidified into yet more wolves. She cautiously reached her hand out to the closest one. Its muzzle, which had been seamless, suddenly split into a wide mouth with sharp icicle fangs.
"Down, dog," the woman said mildly. She pressed on what had appeared to be a section of rock, and it slid sideways into the stone around it.
Anna didn't know much about caves, but there were always secret entrances and pathways in palaces, and she had to admire the ingenuity of it all. There was no way to find the entrance without knowing where it was, and, a little further down, no way to climb the sheer rock face they ran into except with the perfectly constructed ice stairway frozen against the wall. This was a place made for privacy.
After she had dragged Kristoff away from admiring the ice and got Sven settled at the bottom of the stairs (they were too narrow and slippery for him to manage) the woman brought them into another cave, this one clearly lived in with a firepit and kitchen wares strewn about, and finally through a set of grand ice doors.
"Wait here," she said, and scampered off before they could protest. There was a hard threat in her voice, and Anna thought she might use the knife after all if it came to it.
With little else to do, they occupied themselves with admiring what they could see of the structure they were in. "Anna," Kristoff said, voice heavy with awe, "I think this is a whole house made out of ice."
Anna looked around. It was hard to tell just from this room, but most of the walls were at least somewhat translucent, and it was obvious the building went on quite a ways. "This isn't just a house; I think it's a castle."
He sniffled. "I regret every mean thing I've ever said to you. This is the greatest day of my life."
"I'm glad you like the ice," she said. Mentally though she was screaming. The ice? The ice made it the greatest day of his life?! She was about to see her sister! The sister she thought was dead but who was alive and living with a robber woman on a mountain and also apparently had a keen eye for architecture and engineering and was probably better than Anna at cooking because of all the pots and pans she had seen because the robber woman didn't look like she was much of a cook so it had to be Elsa and oh goodness Anna was going to pass out right there and crack her head on the lovely ice. That would be a terrible first impression. She wondered if it was possible to hyperventilate while holding your breath.
"Hi!"
She screamed, but at least Kristoff did too. He grabbed at her while she flailed, and when they were righted she saw a small snowman watching them.
"My name's Olaf and I like warm hugs!" he chirped, arms wide in invitation.
"A snowman," Kristoff mumbled. "Snowman, snow dogs, yeah, okay, I get it."
Anna couldn't speak. There was a memory seared in her brain, bright and fresh from this very morning, when she had thought to revisit it as a test if they were to find Elsa. And here was the answer, delivered in his own words.
"Olaf?" she asked, voice wavering. He looked up at her and nodded.
Elsa made Olaf.
Oh, God, it was really Elsa.
Then the doors at the far side of the room opened, and it was Elsa, striding towards them. Her face was twisted in confusion and not a small amount of worry, but otherwise she was exactly like the woman Anna had imagined. Not the confusing and occasionally frightening visions on the ship, the ones that had later become polluted by rumors and stories. No; it was the Elsa she had pictured in her bedroom, tall and fair and beautiful and perfect.
Her sister. Found at last.
"Elsa!" She was running, sliding, skidding across the ice floor, and when she hit Elsa it was more of a slam than a hug. She could see the robber woman behind Elsa, her eyes comically wide, hands poised as if she expected a blow. "Elsa, Elsa, oh…"
Elsa was trembling. She lifted her hands to rest on Anna's arms, shifted them briefly to press against her back, and finally moved them to Anna's shoulder and gently pushed her away. Her eyes, those bright blue eyes that hadn't changed at all, were shining with tears, but her expression was still one of confusion. Anna held her breath, wanting to do nothing more than make her case, convince Elsa that she was really there, but her voice was lost completely.
"Anna?" she asked. It was a genuine question, not a confirmation. She carefully cupped Anna's cheek with shaking fingers, then looked at, and touched, the white streak winding through her hair. At the touch Anna could see the confusion draining from her expression to be replaced with shock and—please please let it be—hope.
"Anna," she said, and there was no question this time. Just awe, and disbelieving wonder. "You're here."
Anna nodded. "I'm here."