A/N: Hey, guys! New chapter time!—and MUCH sooner than the last couple of times. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one—I did (immensely!) when I was writing it. And by the way, part of this game in here was thought up by my dad—so the credit for a portion of it… goes to him. Also… please, please, please… review! It inspires me to write more than when you… don't… review. So… yeah! Tell me what you think! But anyways… on with the story! :) BTW, you know what I own.

CHAPTER TWELVE

PANBALL

Actually, the game being held was only for the royal family. It was nearly sunset, and the festival had ended; the villagers had all gone back to their homes, ready for a nice rest before another long day at the festival, which would last about a week, the final day of it being Rapunzel's birthday. Only Rapunzel's parents, Eugene, and Elsa knew exactly what this mysterious game was, and the others were impatient to see what this was all about—Rapunzel especially.

So, leaving the still-set-up festival and (in Elsa and Nathan's case) royal guards behind them, the extended family set off to a place that turned out to be somewhat far beyond the palace gardens. It was a very green, very grassy, very flat field, one Rapunzel had explored many times before after being reunited with her parents, but never really thought about all that much. Maximus and Sven followed close behind, the twins still hanging onto the former. Pascal sat on the reindeer's head—they had since become friends with each other. The king and queen soon joined them, both smiling broadly. They both held very large, brown bags, which seemed to clank mysteriously and more loudly as they got closer.

"Hello," said Queen Primrose warmly. "Had a good day so far?"

"The best!" exclaimed Nya, jumping up and down happily.

The queen's smile widened. "I'm glad!"

Rapunzel's green eyes seemed to sparkle as she said, "It's been wonderful, Mother."

"How… wonderful." Queen Primrose laughed with her daughter.

They all stood in silence for a moment, watching the sun starting to sink through the sky, and then Kaara spoke.

"Okay, no more keeping us in suspense. What's this game you've got planned for us?" she asked, smiling slightly.

"Well, now's as good a time as any to reveal it! Elsa, would you do the honors?" said Rapunzel's mother.

Elsa nodded, giving a small smile. "Yes, Auntie Primrose." Her smile turned into a slightly mischievous smirk as she turned around, her arms stretched out in front of her. She then waved them and at once, out of her hands shot ice. It formed into a crystal clear platform, which had arches of smooth ice on the sides. They stopped in the center of the two sides facing the group. The platform was huge, with snowflake designs all over it. Two hoops stood on either side, held upward by small platforms of ice.

Rapunzel gasped. "What… what is all this? Elsa?"

The Snow Queen smiled. "Just wait and see."

Rapunzel turned to her parents. "What is all this?" she repeated.

"Well, you knew we were planning on having a game for you," said the king, "and this is what we will be playing on!"

"But what game is it?"

"A game that I thought up myself, actually," said Eugene.

Rapunzel turned to look at him. "You did? When did you think that up?"

"Never mind that, they have to teach us how to play it!" said Kaara.

King Benjamin chuckled. "Yes, we do. Rider, would you do the honors?"

Eugene rolled his eyes. "Sure thing, 'majesty'." He cleared his throat and looked around at the surrounding group. "So, you see this field of ice over here?" He nodded toward the platform. "This is where we will be playing the game I call…." He paused for "dramatic effect." "…panball!"

His face fell. These people were not looking as amazed as he had hoped. He cleared his throat again before continuing, "So, on to how you play it. Benjamin I, Primrose II, would you do the honors?"

The king and queen both nodded before emptying the contents of their bags. Out tumbled a bunch of clattering, clanging, metal—

"Frying pans!" Rapunzel exclaimed with surprised delight.

"But what do frying pans have to do with anything?" inquired Kaara.

"Well, you see," said Eugene, waving his hand towards the said cooking utensils, "these are our tools for the game. Each of us will get one of these frying pans to try to whack a ball into one of those hoops."

"And…?" said Kaara pointedly.

"And… you know what, I'm just gonna start at the beginning." Eugene sighed. "So, we split up into two teams. Doesn't really matter how many people you have on each of them, as long as it's more than one—then again, maybe one-on-one would be okay. Anyway, everyone gets a frying pan. There is one ball. You get a point by getting the ball into one of the hoops on the opposing team's side. Got that so far?"

Everyone nodded or said some form of the word "yes."

"Okay, great. So anyway, there is one 'goalie' on each team. He or she tries to keep the other team from scoring by using their pan (or hands) to catch the ball or stop it from rolling through the hoops and earning a point. But catching it is not really recommended, unless you use your frying pan. So, in recap—try to score as much as you can before dark!" Eugene finished.

Everyone stared at him. Then, Nya started jumping up and down in excitement again.

"Ooh, I can't wait to play!" she said enthusiastically.

"Great!" Eugene said in a somewhat relieved tone of voice, putting his hands together in a final sort of way. "So, ready to start playing?"

The group before him agreed in some sort of way, but then Nathan asked, "But what if we slip and fall on the ice? Someone could get hurt!"

"Oh, yes, about that… Elsa?" said Eugene.

After briefly glaring at Nathan, Elsa nodded again and, with a wave of her hands, had conjured ice skates on everyone, including herself.

"Ooh, they're beautiful!" exclaimed Kaara.

"They're lovely!" added Rapunzel.

"I love them!" cooed Nya.

Mary stayed silent but smiled, nodding contentedly.

"Great, then let's start!" said Anna suddenly, her face set and not smiling. She stomped over to the frying pans and picked one up. Then, overbalancing, she fell over; luckily, in was on the soft grass, and not the pile of frying pans beside her. She stood up wobblingly and brushed herself off before rejoining the others.

"Yeah!" said Nya. She proceeded to go through pretty much the same process as her adopted older sister, though not as grumpily.

"Maybe I give them those later…" muttered Elsa, but everyone else was starting to get frying pans as well.

They were all starting to walk out onto the platform when Mary noted suddenly, "What about a ball?"

Eugene froze. So did his face. "Uh… I sorta forgot about that."

"Then what are we going to use for one?" asked Kaara, crossing her arms.

"Erm… I really don't know." For once, Eugene was all out of ideas.

"Maybe Elsa can make one!" exclaimed Nya.

"Hmm… not bad, Nya, not bad," said Eugene, nodding his head slowly. He turned to Elsa. "How about it, Elsa?"

Elsa paused for half a second before saying, "I can try, I suppose. I mean, I once made houses made of ice that were literally not cold at all, so it can't be that hard, can it?"

She took a deep breath before forming a ball that looked like it was made of glass in her hands. "There."

"But will it be hard enough?" said Kaara.

"Let's see…." Eugene took the ball from Elsa before setting it on the ground and whacking it very hard with his frying pan. It shattered into several cold pieces.

"Yeah… I don't think that worked," said Kaara, smirking slightly.

"I'll try again, then." Elsa made another ball. Kristoff hit it with his frying pan this time, and, after a few blows, it, too, broke apart. She tried again. And again. After a few more rounds, she finally made one hard enough that Anna's very hard and very stubborn blows could not break.

"There we go," Elsa said happily, holding it up to the sun's dying rays. "Perfect." She paused a moment, considering the small ice ball.

"Or maybe not so perfect." With a wave of her hand, swirling snow filled the ball like a tiny snowstorm.

"Wait a moment…." Nya took the ball from Elsa and stared at it. She said dramatically, "Ooh… I can see… someone's future… it's… oh, wait!" She giggled suddenly, dropping her drama-ness. "It's just a dog!"

"What?" said Anna in a confused tone of voice.

"Ooh, Nya, you could be a fortune teller!" said a voice from down below.

Everyone looked in that general direction and saw a very certain snowman and snowlady.

"Olaf! Summer!" exclaimed Rapunzel.

"You forgot us," said Summer simply.

"Yes… we did indeed. How did you find us?" asked Kaara.

"Well, there was a pretty obvious trail for us to follow, did you see?" said Olaf. He pointed his stick arm in the direction of where the younger royalty had gotten to the field. Indeed, there was a thin layer of frost on the grass there in a long, narrow path that could have only been made by one person.

"Elsa?" Rapunzel asked, in a very slightly timid voice.

Elsa remained silent for a moment. "Yes, umm…."

"Is there something wrong?" Kaara inquired.

"No… I… later." Elsa shook her head. "We've got a game to play." With that, she stepped up onto the platform, her long, pale braid swinging off of her shoulder and down her back.

"Well, then let's begin!" said Kaara decidedly, following her friend up onto the ice.

"Yeah!" Olaf agreed, joining the two young women.

After that, everyone walked up onto the platform with them—even the king and queen—but the animals stayed firmly on the ground.

In truth, there was something wrong, however much Elsa tried to convince herself that there wasn't. It was Nathan. All this sudden overprotectiveness that seemed to have overcome him today… she didn't like it. She was perfectly capable of protecting herself—perhaps more so than others (she did have the powers of ice and snow, after all). Elsa had been pondering this as she and the others had walked through the field, and Nathan's constant mutters and attempts to keep her "safe" along the way did not help with her very mixed feelings.

And this was not the Nathan she had met barely six months before, not the Nathan White she had fallen in love with. Wait… she was admitting that to herself? Wow.

The world worked in many strange ways, but, in Elsa's uncertain mind, the strangest thing she had ever come across was the feelings she felt when she thought about the Nathan that was not the overprotective one she knew now.

"Wait a sec… how did you not notice that ice when you came over here?" Rapunzel asked her parents as she helped her mother up.

"Well, we came from the direction of the castle. I suppose you just came straight from the festival," Primrose replied.

Rapunzel nodded.

"So, let's figure out who's on which team!" Eugene said to the group at large, putting his hands together decisively.

"I wanna be with Mary!" Nya said stoutly.

"Easy enough. But let's see… er…. Okay, how about this. Kristoff, you and I are the captains, and we take turns picking our teammates," said Eugene.

"Okay." Kristoff shrugged. "Who first?"

"Uh…."

"How about I pick a number between one and ten, you guys each say a number, and whoever gets that specific number or the one closest to it picks first?" said Kaara.

"Right." Eugene waited for approximately three seconds. "Got it?"

"Got it," confirmed Kaara.

"Okay… is it… five?" asked Eugene.

"You'll see," replied Kaara, smiling deviously.

"Great. Kristoff, go."

"Let's see… two," Kristoff said after a moment of thought.

"Right. Kristoff got it exactly. Pick and choose, big bro."

"Okay. Rapunzel."

Eugene threw Kristoff a furious look as his wife walked over to Kristoff before saying resolutely, "Anna."

Anna stomped over to Eugene, eyes closed, arms crossed, head held high and nose in the air.

Kristoff sighed. "Nya."

The little girl ran over to them, a beam on her face, her hair shimmering in the fading sunlight.

"Kay… uh… Olaf," said Eugene.

The snowman waddled over to him.

"Mary," said Kristoff.

Mary joined the ice harvester's group.

"Can Summer be on our team?" asked Olaf.

Eugene sighed. "Sure. Summer."

"Yay!"

"Elsa," said Kristoff a moment later.

"Kaara," Eugene said next.

"Primrose," said Kristoff.

"Benjamin."

"All right, let's get this party started!" Kaara exclaimed suddenly.

With that, they had gone to opposite ends of the ice rink. Nya was the goalie on one end, while Summer was the goalie on the other.

"Hey, Max, would you do the honors?" Eugene called over to the horse, waving the ice ball in the air.

Maximus lifted his head up from the grass he had been sniffing and nodded, before jumping up and onto the ice rink. He took the ice ball in his jaws before dropping and letting it role onto the ice and to the middle of the center snowflake on the platform. And then the game began.

"I got it! I got it!" yelled Olaf as he ran forward, stick arms sagging under the weight of the frying pan he was holding. He proceeded to swing it at the ball, but his aim was so bad, and the frying pan so heavy, that he missed it completely and slipped, falling flat onto his face. He stood up, shaking his head to clear it, his head now slightly distorted. His nose seemed to have been pushed backwards, into his head, so that now only a small stubble of orange showed in the front. "I don't got it!"

"Here." Kaara swooped over and scooped the ball into her frying pan. "No one said I couldn't carry it, did they?" She smirked as she skated across the very long length of the rink. And she could skate very well.

As Kaara zoomed past Kristoff, she called out to him, "On your left!"

Kristoff shook his head, smiling and skating to catch up to her.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Rapunzel exclaimed, laughing and hitting Kaara's frying pan with her own, following after the two siblings.

The ball fell out and landed on the ground. Kristoff began hitting it towards the opposite end and Summer. With a final swoop of the frying pan, the ball was soaring straight at her.

"Watch out!" Rapunzel exclaimed, but it was too late. The ball had landed squarely in the snowlady's chest.

"Whoops…" said Kristoff.

All was at a stand-still as Summer's eyes lowered to the ball on her.

"I've got a ball stuck in me!" she exclaimed. Then, becoming more excited every second, it seemed, she shouted to Olaf, "I've got a ball stuck in me!"

Everyone was staring at her.

"Ooh! Cool!"

"Push her in!" Nya shouted suddenly from the other end of the rink in front of the two goals.

Giving a slight smirk, Elsa skated smoothly over and did as she had said, giggling at how ridiculous this was.

"Score!" shouted Nya.

"That's not fair!" Eugene exclaimed.

"Well, the ball was in Summer, and Elsa pushed Summer in, and so the ball went in, too!" Nya yelled over to him, rolling her eyes as though it were obvious.

Eugene scowled. "Fine."

"Yes! One point for us!" cried Rapunzel.

Mary, getting an idea, called over suddenly, "Hey, Summer, pass me the ball!"

"Okay!" yelled the snowlady, and at once, she took out the ball and threw it in the direction of Mary.

Eugene, seeing what the eleven-year-old was doing, ran in front of her and exclaimed, "Oh, no, you don't!" The ball landed right in front of him, and he passed Mary by in one smooth motion, hitting the ball as he went.

"Eugene, pass it to me! Pass it to me!" exclaimed Olaf.

"Get over by the goals!" Eugene shouted.

"Okay!" Olaf turned around and went back to Summer.

"Not those!—ah, forget it. Kaara, over here!"

"Roger that, captain!"

"Not if I can help it!" Elsa suddenly came zooming gracefully over to them. Wait—zooming gracefully? How did that even make any sense? And without warning, she had scooped the ball into her frying pan and held it out in front of her and she skated over to Summer and the two goal hoops behind her.

"What?—no!" Eugene groaned.

"Come on, we gotta catch up to her!" exclaimed Anna, her face set, blue-green eyes narrowed.

Recovering quickly, Eugene hurried after her.

Very soon, Elsa was surrounded by people not on her team. She had to think quickly, before they came any closer. "Kristoff! I'm passing it to you, okay?" she said, giving him a knowing look.

Kristoff grinned. "Got it!" He stood, positioned so that he could easily catch the ball if Elsa tossed it to him.

Eugene, Anna, and Kaara hurried over to the ice harvester, but King Benjamin, who had been skating along in the background, took over near Elsa.

The Snow Queen looked like she was about to toss the ball over to Kristoff, but at the last second, she turned her position and threw it at Rapunzel, who reached for the ball, but missed. The ball fell onto the ground; everyone expected it to shatter, but it didn't.

"Whoops!" she exclaimed. She then started hitting it towards Summer. "There we go!"

"I see what you did there!" Kaara shouted. "Clever!"

Elsa beamed. "Thanks!"

Everything that had been going on at that moment had been towards the center of the rink, and now Rapunzel was wobbling past everyone, alone and unguarded, towards Summer. The people on the opposite team were all standing, frozen—except for King Benjamin. He had started chasing after his daughter—and, unfortunately, for Rapunzel's team, he was a much better skater than she. He reached her very quickly and quickly turned the ball around, and soon enough, he had reached Nya and the two hoops.

He stopped for a moment. "You ready?" he asked her.

She nodded breathlessly.

"And… score!" King Benjamin had shot the ball right at the hoop to his right, just managing to get it in there.

"Awe… darn it!" exclaimed Nya, but she was smiling. She had never had so much fun in her life.

"Woo-hoo! One point to us!" shouted Eugene triumphantly.

"Yeah! One point to us!" repeated Olaf.

"Dang…" muttered Mary.

"Shoot…" said Kristoff.

"Awe, Nya, you can do better than that!" scolded Kaara playfully.

Nya giggled. "I will next time!" She began skating around the hoops a bit until she was right in front of both of them, able to guard them equally. "There we go! That better? Harder for them to score?"

"That's perfect!" Kaara gave Nya a thumbs-up, smiling.

Nya beamed. "I'll go get the ball and throw it back to you!" She ran to get it and returned a moment later with the icy sphere.

"Here! I got it!" said Rapunzel.

"There!" Nya tossed it into the young woman's frying pan. It landed with a loud thunk, and off Rapunzel went, now skating a little more smoothly than before.

And, soon enough, Rapunzel had got the ball past Summer (who was waving her arms frantically in the air), and into one of the hoops.

"Yes! Another score for the Twenty-Four-Ers!" shouted Mary, her hands up in the air as she zoomed past Eugene, who was glowering at her, trying to conceal the mixed feelings he was having about his wife scoring and his team now losing.

"The 'Twenty-Four-Ers'?" Elsa asked, confused but smiling all the same.

"Yep! 'Cause it's Punzie's twenty-fourth birthday, see?" explained Mary.

Queen Primrose shook her head, smiling, and exchanged looks with her husband.

"We need to have a team name, too!" Olaf exclaimed.

"Yeah! How about… the… uh… Suns!" shouted Summer.

"Why the Suns?" asked Eugene, bemused.

"Because… uh…."

"Because the sun will be dying as our victory is born!" Kaara finished, punching her frying pan-filled hand into the air.

"Yeah!" Olaf and Summer agreed simultaneously.

The game went on like this for what seemed like hours, or perhaps days, or maybe mere minutes. Beautiful colors swam across the horizon like the most amazing painting: reds, pinks, purples, oranges—and so much more. And when the sun had nearly set, and the teams were now tied, four to four, Elsa suddenly remembered that there was someone missing.

She skidded to a halt, looking around. "Hey, guys… where's Nathan?"

Everyone stopped, the ball in Nya's frying pan and near the middle of the field (she had changed being goalie with Kristoff).

"Uh… I don't know!" Rapunzel exclaimed.

"Yeah, where is he?" asked Kristoff.

"How could we have missed him!" Kaara practically yelled.

"Uh, you missed us," Olaf pointed out.

"Our memories must be backfiring on us today," Queen Primrose said from on the other side of the arches on the rink. "Just this morning, for some strange reason, I thought it was Benjamin's birthday, not Rapunzel's."

"Yes, but where is he?" Elsa wondered.

Nathan, upon hearing the word "ball," had felt very uneasy about letting Elsa play the game. And "frying pan" had made it even worse. And then, when everyone had gotten their ice skates on, he had made up his mind: he, Nathan White, was not going to let Queen Elsa of Arendelle die just because of a simple game of "panball;" or at least, get severely injured. So, he decided that he would go back to the castle and get a bunch of armor for Elsa to wear. However, it ended up taking much longer than he had expected.

Firstly, he had no idea where the castle armory was. Secondly, when he did ask a passing servant where it was, the servant who lead him there seemed to have absolutely no idea where he was going and he had to ask someone else. This other servant, Sarah, seemed much more capable of finding it than the other one. And then, there was the sheer choice of armor, and he had to pick one that would fit Elsa, and then stuff it into a bag. But the thing that delayed him the longest was none of those things—it was the guards that had been protecting Elsa from hidden dangers at the festival. Or perhaps it was what happened when he met them just then that greatly lengthened his journey.

Heaving the large sack over his shoulder, Nathan had turned around in the armory to get out, when he heard noise coming from outside. He stepped out and closed the door behind him and saw at once that the cause of the noise was the same guards he had met earlier that day.

They turned around and spotted him. "Oh, hello, mister!" one of them said jauntily. "Having a nice day?"

"Uh…."

"Wait a sec, I know you! You 'er the one with Queen… Elise, was it?" exclaimed a very pimply one.

"Her name is Queen Elsa of Arendelle, for your information," said Nathan, standing up a bit straighter—which wasn't very straight, as he had a very heavy sack of armor over his shoulder.

"Oh, yeah. Hey, would you tell 'er, from me, that she's one heck of a looker?" said the pimpliest one.

"Er…."

"Oh, and while you're at it, take this, would ya? It'll protect her from those evil spirits." One of them, with sleek blond hair, handed him a huge and extremely heavy sack that rivaled in weight with the bag of armor.

"Eh…." Nathan took it. What was all this about? Well… maybe it would be best to take this, just in case. These guards were… well, guards, after all. They must know something about safety.

"All right, then," he grunted, now sagging under the weight of a bag of armor and a bag of something equally heavy. "I'll just be going, then…."

"Make sure to send her our love!" crowed one of the guards.

Nathan nodded over his shoulder as he took the very long, very heavy, and very painful trip back to Elsa.

It was now getting quite dark—but the moon was so bright, only a sliver of dark in the shape of a crescent showing, nearly a full moon, the stars so light, and fireflies had begun swarming out of the grass, that everyone wanted to continue with the game. Kristoff's team was now winning by ten to eight, and everyone was simply having the time of their lives.

It was then that Maximus suddenly heard very weary and tiresome panting coming from behind him. He turned around to see a strange, sweaty, brown-haired man with two large sacks on his shoulders coming up to him—and then realized that it was Nathan.

Elsa turned her head and looked over as well, noticing him in the dim light.

"Nathan!" she shrieked, dropping the ball from her frying pan in surprise. It smashed. "Where have you been?!"

"Getting… things… to keep… you… safe…" Nathan panted, finally letting his bags drop down onto the ground before him.

"What?" asked Elsa. That was when everyone else noticed Nathan's sudden appearance.

"Nathan!" Kaara, Anna, and Rapunzel shouted simultaneously in surprise.

Elsa skated out of the rink and looked down at Nathan, who was bent over, hands on his knees, right in front of the rink. She then bent down carefully and emptied the contents of one of the sacks. Out clanged the pieces of the suit of armor.

"What is this?" she asked in a slightly disgusted tone of voice.

"Ar—mor," replied Nathan, clutching a stitch in his side.

"What?"

"To—keep—you—from getting—hit—hurt—by a—frying pan!"

"But—what?" Elsa having some very mixed thoughts and emotions right now about this.

"You need to be safe, Elsa!" Nathan exclaimed.

"But—"

"Hey, look!" Kaara had joined them and stared into the second bag "It's fruit!"

"WHAT?!" shouted Nathan viciously, joining Kaara's side quickly and staring at the fruit, which mostly consisted of watermelons. "FRUIT?!"

"Well, yeah," said Kaara pointedly. "But why would you bring fruit? And this much?"

"I thought—protect Elsa—UGH!" Nathan stomped his foot down very hard onto a watermelon. It ended up sinking into the large fruit, splattering him and Kaara with bits of watermelon.

Kaara slowly opened her eyes, wiping her sticky face with her equally sticky hands. She turned to look at Nathan, who was looking quite scared now.

"FRUIT FIGHT!" she yelled out suddenly, and instantly, she grabbed the sack and brought it out onto the rink. She then started sinking her feet into as many watermelons, regular melons, oranges, grapefruits, apples, and (on accident) pineapples as she could, before picking up the pieces and throwing them at everyone in sight.

Her face brightening up more than it had at all today, Anna ran over to her friend and started doing the exact same thing. And soon, everyone else had joined in. Except for Nathan, who had instantly run into the midst of people, waving around the helmet he had brought with him, before getting fruit all over him. Soon, a full-fledged fruit fight had broken out.

Everywhere on the ice rink, people were getting hit by broken (or, sometimes, the occasional whole) fruit, and becoming very sticky. Maximus and Sven, looking up instantly, watched interestedly. Maximus, having the twins strapped to him, could not risk them getting injured or worse by a piece of flying fruit, could not join them. Sven, being a loyal friend, stayed behind. If there weren't any carrots anywhere, he had no reason to join in. Plus, Pascal was on his head. Though the chameleon loved fruit (he had told Sven so), he didn't really want to be hit with any that flew, either. Everyone was laughing (except for Nathan) and shouting and wishing that this day could never end.

However, it had to at some point. For one thing, clouds were starting to fill the sky, covering the moon and obscuring its light. For another, Nathan had started practically sobbing at them, yelling at them to stop, that someone (Elsa, as a matter of fact) was going to get hurt. And Anna had begun throwing full-sized pieces of fruit at both Kristoff and Eugene in turn, quite a bit more viciously than was necessary.

"All right, all right, let's stop," Kristoff said at last, shielding his face with his arms from ongoing weapons from his wife. But she wasn't listening to him. "Anna, I said LET'S STOP!"

At that, she halted, her hand in the air, holding an apple in it. Her face was red and her hair was frazzled; most of it was out of her braid, and bits of fruit were stuck in it. She was breathing heavily through her teeth.

"Anna, what's wrong?" Kristoff asked curiously, tilting his head to the side. "You've been acting up all day!"

"That's because you were a… a… a… weasel this morning!" shouted Anna, her face becoming redder by each word.

"A what?" Kristoff asked, confused. Now everyone was watching.

"A weasel!" Anna exclaimed. "Yeah… that's what you were! You and Eugene both! Talking about me behind my back like that!"

"I—what? Wait…. OOOH!" Kristoff hit his forehead very hard. "THAT'S why you've been acting so strangely today!"

"So you think that I'm strange now, too, huh?" huffed Anna.

"Wait, no, Anna, listen to me," Kristoff said gently, walking closer to her. She backed away.

"Wait, Anna… Feisty Pants!"

At this, Anna stopped and took a deep breath, her eyes suddenly tired. "Yes?"

"We weren't talking about you this morning!" said Kristoff. "That was Summer!"

"Wait—what?!" Anna exclaimed. "Tha—bu—bu—oh, Kristoff!" She suddenly ran at him and enveloped him in an almost rib-cracking hug.

"Anna…." Kristoff stroked her soft ginger hair.

"Kr-Kristoff…" Anna sobbed into her husband's chest. "I—I've been so st-stupid…."

"No… no, you haven't! Anyone would have made that mistake!" Kristoff said consolingly.

"R-really?" Anna looked up into Kristoff's soft brown eyes.

"Really." Kristoff gave a small smile.

Anna did her best to return it before burying her face once more into the ice harvester's chest.

"Uh… what's going on? Why are they talking about me?" Summer asked in a whisper to Olaf, her stick hand over her snow mouth.

"I have no idea." Olaf was staring at Summer as though she was some sort of long-lost treasure he had just found.

Elsa walked up to her sister and Kristoff quite slowly. "Um… hey, guys? Are you… done yet?"

Anna sniffed and turned around. "Yeah. Let's go back to the castle now."

Elsa gave a relieved sort of smile. "Great. Come on, let's go. It's getting late."

Anna nodded. "Yeah." Then, she stared up at Kristoff, who, taking her message, picked her up.

"Let's go," he sighed.

Red shrieked. But then the figure stood up so that she could see it to its fullest extent.

The figure was not was she had expected. She had heard stories about wolves roaming around in the forest, and had heard that they could gobble you up in one gulp if they wanted to. She, of course, was too old to believe such foolish things, but still….

And this figure was not a wolf.