Anna- Back To Arendelle

The first glimpse of home came the next morning. Anna had just begun to nod off in her saddle when she felt a nudge on her elbow. Looking around, she saw Heins pointing ahead of them, grinning. Arendelle was gleaming in the distance, the fjord sparkling behind it. Maybe it was just that she hadn't seen it in a month (and part of Anna was still reeling that it had only been a month), but Anna was sure it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever laid eyes on.

Their party had dwindled since entering the Kingdom. Arendelle only had one real city, the capital, and every other town was small, simple, and, as Heins and Elsa had pointed out, for all practicality impossible to defend for a return of very little strategic value. So Elsa had sent out members of the Queensguard to evacuate the rest of the towns and consolidate in the capital. There had been some aversion to the idea, seeing as it was the exact same plan that had ended in utter ruin about three days before, but no one had been able to come up with a suitable alternative, so that was that. Only Anna, Kristoff, Elsa, Heins, Silas, and Leila remained now, with the others to join them when they had finished their respective evacuations. Anna looked around at the rest of them, and relief shone on each face- well, except for Silas, who never looked anything but bored with his surroundings. Anna thought she saw Elsa look frightened for a moment, but decided it must have been a trick of her tired eyes. It wasn't long before the city gates opened and a lone horsemen came charging out. He wore the Arendelle colors, but all six of them tightened their hands on their weapons as he approached, having been surprised too many times lately. To Anna's relief, their concern was for naught.

"Hail, Queen Elsa!" he cried, coming to a halt in front of them. "You are much earlier than expected… and where is-"

"Not now," Elsa interjected. "Return to the city and tell your superior officer we are coming. That'll be Raston's son, won't it?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, Colonel Raston." Anna smiled on hearing the name. Not much was known about the younger Raston. Anna didn't even know his first name, but he had only been in service for a year before he made Colonel. As these things go, he had faced some accusations that he had only attained his position through his father's influence, but those were silenced when he offered to relinquish his position to anyone who could defeat him in a sparring match. After a few broken bones, three concussions, and a bruised sternum, everyone seemed to suddenly have known all along he was a fine Colonel.

"Good. Tell him to await us at the gate." The man saluted and galloped away, and the six of them continued on their way. The passed through the gate a short while later to find Colonel Raston waiting there with four city guards. They waited, still and silent, while the six of them dismounted and passed their weary mounts to stablehands.

"Greetings, Your Majesty," he said in a silky tone when Elsa approached. Colonel Raston was much like his father- tall, imposing, and relentlessly proper, with an excellent battle sense despite his relative inexperience.

"Greetings, Colonel. Come with me, I'll fill you in on the way to the castle. Leila, Silas, take these men-" she indicated the city guards "- and begin organizing the city guard to fortify the city. Oh, and someone find Gareth and have him come to the castle." True to form, Colonel Raston said nothing, just signaling to his guards to obey before falling in step beside Elsa as they strode up the main street towards the castle. Elsa began to explain, and if Colonel Raston were surprised at what had happened, he didn't show it. Elsa didn't finish the tale until they were all in the throne room. Her last words had just faded into silence when the door opened and Gareth strode in.

"Someone said you wanted to see me, Your Majesty?"

"Yes, thank you Gareth," Elsa said. "The army is on their way back here. Find them, and assist General Raston in any way you can. He'll explain the details."

Gareth had begun shrinking before Elsa had even finished her order. Heins threw open the window, and in seconds, the eagle had taken flight and soared out the window.

"Pardon me," said Colonel Raston. Anna was surprised to see that his normally impassive visage was clouded with worry. "What do you command, Your Majesty? Have you returned to fight, or surrender?"

"Surrender is not an option," said Heins, before Elsa could answer. "To a normal ruler, sure, surrendering may be the best choice. But being treated fairly by Hans is outside the realm of possibility. He killed almost our entire family. He has laid waste to three Kingdoms already. He has no intention of allowing our surrender, I promise you that." Colonel Raston cocked an eyebrow at Elsa, who nodded.

"Very well. In that case, there is much to do. Is there more, Your Majesty…?"

"No, Colonel. You are dismissed. Go and brief your lieutenants." Colonel Raston saluted and left. Elsa turned around and walked to the window, her shoulders moving with slow, deliberate breaths. After a moment, the others joined her.

"How can we help, Elsa?" asked Kristoff.

Elsa took a while to respond, and when she did, her voice was weak and shaky. "I don't know."

Kristoff, Anna, and Heins exchanged looks. "Well…" began Kristoff. "Until you need us for something, Anna and I will go find the Queensguard and help them to organize the defense?" Elsa nodded. Kristoff turned to go, but Anna walked over to Elsa and wrapped her arms around her sister.

"You got this, Elsa," Anna whispered in her ear. "I believe in you." Elsa didn't say anything, but that was okay. Anna didn't see the dark look that passed between Kristoff and Heins. She broke away and followed Kristoff out of the throne room, back out of the castle, and towards the front gates of Arendelle. As they walked, they discussed their options.

"Hans will not be able to come from the water," Kristoff said. "Even if he could muster the navy from the Southern Isles, all Elsa would have to do is-" Kristoff stomped on his next step "- and that'd be that. "

"You're right," said Anna. "He's seen firsthand that Elsa could freeze the entire fjord without even meaning to. Land it is."

Kristoff nodded. "So what I was thinking is that we could have the soldiers dig trenches leading up to the wall. Stack the dirt on the side of the trench closest to the wall. Make sure the dirt is nice and loose, so it's hard to climb. With a few layers of trenches, that'll slow them down a lot, and we can do a lot of damage with archers up on the walls. In the meantime, we can pour boiling pitch or oil down on them, and then, we'd have to- Anna?"

Anna had frozen in mid-stride some ten feet behind Kristoff, unable to wrap her head around that thought. "You want to… pour boiling oil… on people?" Kristoff's face hardened.

"They would do the same to us. They'd do worse to us. Remember who we're fighting. We can't show mercy to those who would show us none. Our only hope is to cause enough damage to convince Hans it's not worth it to take Arendelle. And the only way we do that, is by doing... things we'd rather not do." Anna wanted to argue, but there was too much truth in Kristoff's words.

"Fine," she conceded, beginning to walk again. "But it's still wrong. And we might not need to. Elsa will think of something by then." They reached the main gate and paused, gazing around.

"They'll probably have a battering ram…" Kristoff said, deep in thought, inspecting the gates. "And this wood is old. It won't hold very long unless it has some serious reinforcement. We could start by taking care of that, but even then, it won't last. They'll break through for sure. And they'll probably try coming over the walls too. We won't hold them at the wall, just delay them"

"So what do we do, then?" Anna asked.

Kristoff turned around to face the city, and Anna followed suit. There was a quarter mile of empty grass between the gate and the first buildings. Countless roads and alleys between them offered many points of entry for the enemy. But, each of those alleys save for the main road were no wider than three or four men standing shoulder to shoulder. It would be very easy to defend those points, the Empires numerical advantage meaning nothing if they could only get one or two to the front at a time. Against an entrenched foe, they'd lose dozens and not get an inch into the city, the very bodies of their fallen comrades hindering the ones left alive. The main road, however, was much harder to defend. It was almost a hundred feet wide of clear, open bricktop. There was no way to dig, and nowhere to put any type of barricade that couldn't just be pushed over.

"What do we do about that, Kristoff?" Anna asked, gesturing towards the road. "Those little alleys will be easy enough to defend, but that? We'll have no advantage. We could put archers on the roofs along the road, but once the Empire gets here, they'll be too close to our own soldiers for the archers to shoot."

"I don't know."

Anna thought for a moment, then- "We could pile up wagons and things in a big pile for them to have to climb over. It's not much, but it's something. And then, we could-" Revulsion forced her throat closed, but with great effort, she continued. "The street is stone. We could set fire to it as they climb over." Kristoff turned to her in surprise. "Hey, you said it, right? 'Things we'd rather not do'?"