(Sorry I haven't posted in a while guys, I've been dealing with a wicked case of Writer's Block and summer job hunting has proven to be far more time-consuming and exhausting than I originally anticipated. The fact that I'm still unsure of how to end this thing also isn't helping. Thank you to everyone still reading this though!)


Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, bagels, omelettes, sausages, crepes, french toast, and muffins... And that was just Sam's plate. Everyone else at the table opted for just two or three of the foods Sam was currently devouring, and they all sat in silence and watched as Sam attacked the mountain of food on her plate the same way a Lion attacks a Hyena that is threatening its one cub. There was just a blur of brown fur zipping around the pile of food on the plate that slowly but surely began to shrink in size, the only sound that could be heard was Sam sinking her teeth into whatever she decided to take a huge bite out of.

Even Kristoff felt a little threatened.

"Sam you might wanna slow down there and CHEW your food" Kristoff replied, after a piece of scrambled egg was flung from Sam's plate onto Kristoff's face, in which Sam pounced on it to take it back.

"Where are you putting all of that anyways?" Olaf asked, confused at how a squirrel the size of... well, a squirrel... was eating a pile of food 7 times its own weight.

"I'm putting it in my stomach!" Sam called out, spraying food as she talked. She had absolutely no dinner manners and was rubbing Elsa the wrong way as a result. Anna on the other hand was secretly trying to conceal her laughter at the spectacle.

"Yeah but if you keep eating, your stomach just might explode!" Kristoff cautioned

Sam stopped in her tracks. "If I could pick my own way to die, having my stomach explode sounds like a pretty good way to go..." She replied, before resuming her conquest of the mountain of food on her plate.

"Sam, if you're going to stay with us for the foreseeable future, then you're going to have to learn to control yourself when you eat..." Elsa warned

"The only way that could happen is if I suddenly lost my appetite" - Sam

"I KNOW HOW TO DO THAT!" Olaf suddenly yelled out. He then hopped onto the table and hobbled over towards Sam, stepping on everyone else's food in the process. "I learned this little trick a while ago and was wondering when it would come in handy.

Olaf picked up a piece of bread, and peeled off the crust of it. He HATED the crust on his bread. He then put the crust in his mouth, and chewed on it 4 or 5 times.

Then, he stood perfectly still, nothing happening at all.

"Umm Olaf..." Kristoff asked, wondering what was going on. "When is this trick of yours going to-"

Olaf then interrupted Kristoff by throwing up all over Sam's food, along with Sam herself. The vomit wasn't actual vomit though, it was just snow. Snow that was indistinguishable from any other kind of snow, except that it had come from out of Olaf's mouth.

Sam, was HORRIFIED. She stood perfectly still in fear, anger, disgust, and even more fear, as she observed the snow throw up all over her and the food she was about to eat. Sam then slowly moved away from the food the same way someone wearing a cold, wet t-shirt would move to avoid getting colder than they already were, while everyone else simply watched.

"Olaf did you just THROW UP all over Sam?" Anna asked, bewildered

"I told you that i REALLY don't like the crust on bread..." Olaf responded with a mindless smile.

Kristoff got up from his seat and used his own sleeve to wipe the snow off of Sam, who was slowly filling up in rage at Olaf for spoiling her feast.

"I. Am. Going. To. KILL. HIM." Sam whispered to herself that only Kristoff could hear.

"Don't worry... I'll help you" Kristoff replied with a wink. Anna took Sam's plate that had Olaf vomit on it and took it away to be thrown out, while Elsa resumed finishing her own breakfast, having regained her own appetite now that she didn't have to watch Sam attack the pile of food in front of her like a wild boar.

In two hours time, they would be docking at Heilios.


There are two kinds of winter in the world, and even someone who has never really lived through cold winters can notice the differences between the two of them. On one hand, you have the "Fresh" winters. These are the ones that just arrived. They fill people with excitement at the change of scenery, only the whitest snow falls and lays on the ground, the wind brushes against your face to gently remind you that the season has changed, and overall the fresh winter offers you more opportunities to live life to the fullest and happily partake in adventures not possible during other times of the year, forging memories that will last the test of time itself.

The other kind of winter though is the Harsh winter... The ones where the wind doesnt casually brush up against your face, it batters it like an army laying siege to a fortress. Snow doesn't carefully fall onto the ground and invites you to come play in it, it plasters the ground and tries to bury people alive until they suffocate. While Fresh winters allow people to joyfully experience the new season, Harsh winters force people to take shelter inside and beg that Spring hurries the heck up, while making them wonder why they live in such an unforgiving place at all.

Heilios was home to such harsh winters. Visibility was always limited as snow always fell in sheets, and because the blasting winds tried to weld your eyes closed with a frozen fury. The same winds howled throughout the valley that Helios was situated in, calling out that those who went outside would meet a terrible frigidly cold death. Not even Elsa, the snow queen herself, could find the winter conditions in Heilios tolerable, and she soon began layering up in what few long sleeves clothes she had brought in order to brace herself for what lied outside the ship.

Winter had arrived only a few weeks earlier, but it would only be a matter of time before the oceans allowing them into the port of Heilios would freeze over. Elsa could thaw the ice out, sure, but if the ocean ice damaged the hull of the ship in the process of becoming frozen, there would be nothing she could do to fix that, and then she and the rest of the gang would potentially be marooned in Heilios for the entirety of their 9 to 10 month winter. Or at least until they could find another ship.

Either way, they had to find what they were looking for to prove Anna's bloodline, whatever it might be, and leave as soon as possible.

The ship pushed chunks of ice in the waters out of its path as it inched into the docks of Heilios, which were small, disorderly, and poorly maintained. There were few spaces to even moor the ship to the pier, since no one in Heilios was wealthy enough to own a boat, let alone manage to keep one in the harbor without it being destroyed.

The docks were in just as bad shape as the houses. All were made of stone since it was too cold for trees to grow in the city, and the snow piled up around the houses on all sides to the point that the snow looked like they were swallowing houses whole. Without routinely digging out the snow, a house could meet that very fate. Elsa watched her step very carefully as she stepped off the ship and onto the pier, with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, Sam and Sven following behind her, with the help of a few guards.

The houses in Heilios were very few in number and sparse. With the wind being as unruly as it was, a person who strained their eyes could only make out 5 or 6 houses at a time, the whipping of the wind in one's face along with the bright shine from the snow was almost blinding.

The whole town looked as if it was encased in a tomb of depression and hopelessness.

"Whoa, now THIS is what I expected the Southern Isles to be like..." Anna said to Elsa, raising her voice so that Elsa could hear her over the wind.

"This place looks so depressing... How could anybody want to live here?" Kristoff wondered out loud

"Maybe someone who hates the sun... And people... And life itself..." Olaf responded.

"Where are we going to go?" Sam asked. Although she stayed away from Anna while she was asleep, Anna and Sam quickly became besties, and Sam was now huddled in between Anna's neck and her left shoulder, trying to stay warm in the blizzard.

"I sent a messenger out when we first landed." Elsa replied "We should be meeting with someone very soon who will take us to the castle of the royal family here in Heilios, from there we can start our search"

"Is that him there?" Kristoff asked, pointing behind Elsa.

They all strained their eyes to see a figure making its way towards the group. It was just one person, and it was definitely a person. About 5'9", too big to be a dog, and too small and thin to be anything else. It stumbled towards the group as they continued to strain their eyes to make out the person approaching them, for the wind was growing stronger and was making it increasingly difficult for them to keep their eyes open without being stung by the frigid cold. Sam had given up on trying to make out the figure, and instead balled up into a little ball on Anna's shoulder to keep trying to stay warm. Kristoff meanwhile couldnt handle the pain of the snow darting into his eyes from the wind and had to break off his gaze, while Olaf wasnt even looking in the right direction. Instead facing back towards the ship and looking for the same figure everyone else had seen.

As the figure drew closer, it began to come more and more into focus. It was a guy wearing a weathered hood over dark black clothing. As he came closer, Elsa could see that his hair was also black, and that the man himself was rather pale, almost as white as the snow whipping in their face.

He called out to them.

"Are you the party of Queen Elsa?" He yelled. "I am here to take you to the Castle of Brodermord!"

It was the Brodermord family who ruled Heilios, Elsa remembered that from her studies from long ago. She had no idea though who the current ruler even was though, and what they would look like.

"Who are you?" Anna asked, managing to crack open one eye long enough to see who was speaking to them.

The man pulled back his hood and held it down with one hand while using the other to shield his eyes from the winds but still see who he was talking to. Elsa first noticed his hair, which was was short and unkept, pushed over casually towards one side before being messed up by the blizzard, but was as black as the midnight sky. The bits of snowflake that got caught in his hair only stood as a testament to how dark the hairs on his head truly were. Elsa next noticed his eyes, which were striking blue, like that of a freshly cut glacier. They were piercing and sharp, and had it not been for the blizzard they were now in, the man;s eyes would have been the first thing Elsa noticed, and from a mile away.

His nose was small and did not raise far out from his face, and his teeth were as white as his hair was black, almost making the snow all around them look inferior in color. A brief lapse in the blizzard afforded Elsa just enough time to truly get a good look at the man she was facing.

He was cute! Not fall-over-yourself hot or you-suddenly-get-real-sweaty hot, but not bad looking at all either. He was the kind of cute that if a girl got into a crowded elevator with him and had to press up against him due to the limited space, it would be about 20 seconds of heaven. He was more adorable than anything else though, he barely looked like he was the same age as Elsa, even though he was. His dark hair contrasted with bright eyes ad white teeth very pleasantly.

He also had what appeared to have a scar on his cheek that ran about an inch from just to the left of his nose towards the top part of his left ear. It was a shame because it was the only blemish on his face.

The winds picked back up and knocked Elsa out of her trance back into reality.

"Y-Yes... I am Queen Elsa" She called out to the man, even though he was only standing 3 feet in front of her. She could barely hear herself over the winds.

"My Name is Eric Brodermord!" He replied. "If you could follow me, we won't have to freeze to death out here in the snow!" He added

"Works for me!" Kristoff said, being the first to walk towards Eric. Everyone else followed suit, and Eric quickly led the eager gang towards the direction of the mountain that watched over Heilios, Mt. Khan. The mountain itself was shrouded in cloud cover due to the storm, and legend had it that nobody had ever seen Mt Khan whole since the weather in Heilios never cleared up enough to allow one to see it.

At the very base of the mountain, past a few dozen wooden houses on their way, lied what appeared to be the entrance into the castle. Except there was no castle. The entrance was 30 feet high and made of stone, but it just led straight into the mountain. It looked like a bunker or a piece of a giant wall more than anything else, but they followed Eric towards it.

As they approached, the giant doors that went all the way to the roof swung open, offering a refuge from the now-pounding winter winds outside. Torches illuminated the inside of the entrance all the way up to the ceiling. The walls were bare and only showcased the stones used to construct the walls, but what was eerie was just how warm it was inside the building. The torches alone could not have made the inside as warm as it was, it simply wasn't possible, it had to have been coming from somewhere else.

There was something about this place that was fishy, but everyone was just thankful to be inside and not in the storm.

"Ahhhh, it's nice in here" Olaf said, earning a surprised look from Eric who had not noticed the talking snowman in the storm.

"Youuuuu have a talking snowman with you?" Eric asked, looking incredulously at everyone else with them.

"Yep, this is Olaf-" - Kristoff

"Hi, my name is Olaf and I like warm hugs!" - Olaf replied, cutting off Kristoff

"-and he likes warm hugs" Kristoff finished.

"Well hi Olaf! It's really nice to meet you!" Eric said back with a smile. He didn't even miss a beat when meeting Olaf, and adjusted to the fact that he was a magical talking snowman very well, especially compared to other people before, who usually responded by screaming and running away, or trying to stab him to death with a pitchfork.

"Hi, I'm Sam and I like food" Sam said, shaking off the snow from the storm and perking up on Anna's shoulder like a parrot.

Eric still smiled and flashed his bright white teeth as he greeted Sam, not even seeming surprised that there were TWO magical talking sidekicks in their party.

"And what is your name?" Eric asked Sven, expecting him to talk as well

"Oh this is Sven. He... He doesn't talk" Kristoff explained.

Eric almost seemed let down. "Awww that's too bad"

Anna intervened. "This is Sven, Kristoff, Olaf, I'm Anna, this is Sam, and this is Elsa" She said, gesturing towards every person as she named them.

Eric nodded. "Okay it, uh, might take me some time to get all of your names remembered, but its great to meet all of you!" He flashed his smile again. Elsa's heart fluttered a little, and she immediately began to like seeing his smile, but her gaze kept being drawn to the scar on his left cheek. She couldn't tell before outside, but now she could see that the scar on his face still looked rather red, indicating that he had actually gotten it very recently.

"Yes, so, Eric right?" Elsa asked

"Yes, Eric Brodermord of House Brodermord. Third in line for the crown after Tyrus and Julius Brodermord. Welcome to Heilios!" He answered, responding almost like a tour guide at a popular travel destination.

"Great, so where is the castle you live in?" - Anna

"Yeah I didn't even see it when you led us here" - Kristoff

"I'll take you there!" Eric said, almost excitedly. "You know you guys are the first people to be allowed in here" He added

"Really? Why is that?" - Elsa

Eric motioned to them to follow him down the hall. They followed as he explained.

"Well, my brothers who run the place... They don't really take well to 'outsiders'..." He started. "They are kind of suspicious and wary of the outside world and are more concerned with their own desires than they are of foreign matters such as diplomacy and trade..."

"Yeah we could tell, there wasn't a single other ship in the dockyard when we arrived..." - Sam

"How'd you get that scar on your cheek?" Kristoff asked.

"Kristoff!" Elsa gasped. She was wondering how he had gotten it himself, but she felt it was too rude for her to ask, since he might be self-conscious about it. Elsa surely would have been self-conscious about it if she had a mark like that on her face, which is why she didn't decide to ask Eric about it.

"Oh that, that, was, that was just, nothing really" Eric said, getting flustered.

Anna moved over towards Elsa, who was trailing in the back of the group, and nudged her with her elbow. Elsa looked at her to see what Anna wanted, but all she did was gesture towards Eric. 'He's cute!' she mouthed to Elsa, not actually saying the words so that nobody could hear her. Elsa shook her head and tried to act like she disagreed with Anna, but Anna knew her to well and saw through her charade.

"He looks pretty hot" - Sam said, knowing what Anna was saying to Elsa but keeping her own voice down so that only the two of them could hear her.

"EW!" Anna replied.

"What?" - Sam

"You're a squirrel!" - Anna

"So? All I said was that he's cute, not that I want to-" - Sam

Elsa shushed them so that nobody else would hear them. Eric, Olaf, and Kristoff were all talking about something else at the moment, and the last thing Elsa wanted to do was interrupt them or bring attention onto herself due to girl-gossip.

"You're a squirrel, you can't be attracted to guys!" - Anna

"Just cause I'm a squirrel it doesn't mean I have to be attracted to someone to think they're cute. I'm not attracted to shoes but I know a cute pair when I see one!" - Sam replied

"Guys do you feel that?" Elsa asked, interrupting them. As they followed Eric deeper down the passageway, the temperature inside was climbing higher, even though the number of torches along the walls remained the same. They picked up the pace to catch up with the group of guys in front of them before they noticed that they had splintered off.

"-And so that's how I found out that I don't need to go to the bathroom" Olaf said, finishing a story he had started while Elsa, Anna, and Sam had dropped behind.

"That's, fascinating!" Eric said, clearly trying to hide a laugh.

"Yeah, it took 2 weeks to clean the castle after that incident though" Kristoff added.

Eric let out a giggle. It was weird though because it wasn't a guy-laugh that was loud or booming like Kristoff's was. Instead it was a more high-pitched cackle that sounded more adorable than it did manly. Eric's laugh was as cute as he was, and when Anna nudged Elsa with her elbow again, Elsa didn't even noticed that she was grinning at hearing Eric's laugh. Elsa recollected herself and stuffed away her juvenile feelings, but Anna now smiled because she could see clear as day that even though Elsa was trying to hide it, she found Eric kind of cute.

"Is it getting warmer in here?" Kristoff asked, asking the question everyone else was already thinking.

"Yeah um, that's the other reason why my brothers don't really let visitors inside here." Eric added.

"Where are we going?" Elsa asked.

Eric continued his explanation. "A lot of people wonder how Heilios sustains itself and how the city manages to even feed itself since it's too cold outside to grow crops. The answer has always been kept a secret, but we are revealing it to you guys since you are royalty who are here on official business..." He elaborated.

They arrived at the end of the tunnel. The torches illuminated a gigantic stone gate, just as massive as the ones that stood at the entrance to the building. A handful of guards swung them open as the request of Eric, and as the doors opened, a wave of heat blasted the visitors the same way the shivering cold in the storm outside did when they first landed.

The group had raised their hands in front of their faces to protect themselves form the heatwave, and as they lowered their hands they looked inside the doors, gasping at what they saw.

"Mt. Khan isn't really just a mountain..." Eric explained. "It's a volcano"

The inside of Mt. Khan had been hollowed out and turned into a city, the true city of Heilios. The inside of the volcano looked like a giant sphere, with homes and buildings being carved into the walls of the volcano that were nearly vertical, farmland being located lower in the volcano where the land grew a little flatter, and the very bottom of the volcano lay untouched, due to the heat becoming too intense to be used for anything. The homes and buildings carved into the walls of the volcano stretched all the way around the mountain, as far as the eye could see. Many of the buildings looked to be hanging from the roof of the volcano walls themselves, when in reality they were just built on top of other buildings below them in a ways to make the most out of the space within the mountain as they could. The largest single building within the walls was the palace where the Brodermord family resided, which was just ten times larger than any other building inside the city, located just above them that overlooked the entire city

The farms meanwhile were not like the wide-expanses of fields you might think of when imagining crops like corn or wheat that dot the American midwest. Inside the volcano, the farms here snaked around the edges of the walls much like how rice-paddies are carved into hills, many of them only 10 feet wide before dropping down a few feet to another farm field. (Google it to get a good idea of what that looks like). These ridges of farmland grew all sorts of crops in the volcanic rich soil, and was the secret to how the city of Heilios managed to sustain and feed a population of 100,000, a population that 99% of which lived inside this one volcano while only some lived in the frigid winters outside.

The entire city was lit via torches, that illuminated the inside of Heilios in a fiery red light. Even the very roof of Heilios, which was too high and slanted to support the construction of any homes or buildings, was illuminated by all the torchlight from the city below. At the very top of the mountain was an opening, an opening that was several football fields why but from the group's perspective looked only a few feet wide. It was through this opening that all of the inner heat and CO2 from people breathing escaped, and where oxygen entered, allowing for life inside the mountain to even be possible in the first place. For water, the city brought in tons and tons of snow from other large tunnels that were carved through the outer walls of the mountain, where people would use the natural heat from the volcano to melt the snow down into fresh water and using it for all of their needs and for growing crops as well.

The very bottom of the open sphere was a different story though from the heavily populated middle section. At the bottom, below where the farm regions ended, was where the heat from the volcano grew too intense for people to stand or survive it. Below the cluster of broken rocks that made up the rocky floor of the hallowed out mountain, miles below, was where the pocket of magma that was generating all of the heat lied, the heat that rose up through all of the rocks into the hollowed out volcano before exiting at the opening at the top of the mountain.

"Everyone..." Eric said, turning around to everyone behind him who were staring in awe of the city they found themselves in. He opened up his arms wide as if he was presenting to a crowd at the Coliseum in Rome. "I welcome you all to the city of Heilios... Also known as, The City of Fire"