I don't think I say enough how you guys are all awesome. I read every review, even if I don't respond to all of them. And it feels like I've gotten a lot more readers lately, so I'm totally glad to hear everyone's enjoying the story.
Now then, if you haven't seen Frozen yet... well, first, you totally should. But if you haven't and you're worried about spoilers you may want to skip the next couple of chapters until you do see it.
Chapter 34: A World of White
"Xigbar, is everything ready?"
Xigbar turned around in surprise as Saïx entered Castle Oblivion, but he composed himself quickly. "Hey, I thought I heard a corridor open! Yeah, we're just about done; it should only take another day or two. Naminé is upstairs, drawing or something, I dunno. Don't think she's enjoying her old room so much."
"'We?'" Saïx raised a suspicious eyebrow. Xigbar's mission to turn Xion back to their cause – to 'tighten the leash,' as he put it – was supposed to be done solo. Within the last few months, there had been rumors of an intruder in white armor that Xigbar spoke to. This visit to Castle Oblivion was partly to check on how the mission was going, but it was also see if Xigbar could be trusted.
"Huh? Oh, just a slip of the tongue." Xigbar said with a shrug. "Anyway man, welcome to good old Castle Oblivion! This is your first time here, isn't it? Not a whole lot to see, I'm afraid. Now you guys, I heard you all put on quite the show—even deep-sixed Flamesilocks, huh? Wish I had been there to see it."
Saïx ignored Xigbar's rambling and looked around, eyeing the blank white walls. They stood in a hallway on some floor partway up the castle, although Saïx was not exactly sure which one. Xigbar was correct; it was his first time in Castle Oblivion. According to all the reports, most of the castle looked just like this. It was a world of white.
x-x-x
"It's a world of white!" Donald declared, peering out the window of the Highwind. Xion, who had been sitting in her chair and absentmindedly toying with Stitch's summon charm, looked out the window with half-interested eyes while the Gummi ship swooped around the new world. But that quickly became real interest when she got a good look, and she sat up straighter to get a better view.
Xion had been expecting some dead world when Donald called it white. That was hardly the case. A coat of white covered everything, from mountains to forests, but it hardly looked dead. The white shined in the sunlight, accompanied every now and then by sparkling blue ice. They flew over a chilly-looking town sitting in a frozen fjord, close enough to see just what all the white was.
"Is that snow?" Sora asked happily. "I've never seen real snow before!"
"It sure looks like it!" Goofy laughed. "Gawrsh, do ya wanna build a snowman?" Xion nodded in agreement. She was super excited to get down there.
"Sora, Xion, go get what you'll need from your rooms," Donald said. "Potions, ethers—things like that. I'll bring us in for a landing."
Her room, huh? They had given Xion one despite her insistence that she'd be fine sleeping on a chair. But the room was nice. It was small yet cheerful; nothing like the cold rooms she had memories of back with the Organization.
Xion recalled when she had boarded the Highwind for the first time and met the crew. Little chipmunks Chip and Dale greeted her with cheer via a screen which linked communications back to their world. Jiminy Cricket – who was in Sora's pocket when they met in Hollow Bastion the first time – had been sitting in the pilot's seat working on his journal. He took a liking to her almost immediately, and he grew especially interested when they got to the 'puppet' part of her story.
Jiminy followed Xion as she made her way to her room. "You know, snow is awfully cold!" He leaped high up, landing in the hood of Xion's jacket. "Do you have any warmer clothes, Xion?"
"This is all I've got," she replied. She stepped into her room and looked out the window. They were flying by a frozen waterfall now. "I'm sure I'll be fine." She kneeled down and opened a chest that Goofy had given her, one stocked with items of all sorts.
Jiminy jumped down onto Xion's bed and eyed her skirt and sleeveless shirt with an almost paternal worry. "Xion, you're dressed for a tropical island. You'll freeze going out into the snow like that! Maybe Sora could lend you one of his larger jackets, that'd at least be a start."
Xion felt her face heat up. "That's… no, I'll find some way to deal with the cold. Thanks for your concern, though, Jiminy." Jiminy sighed in defeat and jumped to the ground, then scampered off into the hall. Xion closed her bag, now stocked with potions and an ether or two. Through the window outside she saw that the Gummi ship had landed inside a snowy forest. "Okay. Let's go find Lilo and Riku."
The Gummi ship's main door was just across the hall from Xion's room. Sora was wearing what was probably the most excited expression Xion had ever seen, though Goofy's own grin was a close runner-up. Xion zipped up her jacket and nodded to Sora, who gleefully swung the door open.
Cold. COLD. Xion started shivering and grabbed her arms, rubbing them to stay warm. Jiminy had warned her, but she hadn't realized just how cold snow really was. And she wasn't even in the snow yet!
"Listen to your conscience just once, kids: dress warmer!" she heard Jiminy shout from the cockpit.
Sora slammed the door shut. His teeth were chattering. "Wow, uh… how are we going to deal with that?" He looked to Goofy and Xion, who both shrugged.
Donald, though, was chuckling to himself. "Leave it to me!"
Donald waved his staff in the air and released a flash of light from the tip. The next thing Xion knew, her jacket transformed into a winter coat though it kept the same design, and it fell down to about her knees now as a winter dress. A yellow scarf was wrapped around her neck. Sora's winter clothes also followed the pattern of his normal outfit, being primarily black, red, and blue but with longer sleeves. His gloves changed from fingerless to wool and now he wore a blue scarf. Both of their shoes had changed to winter boots, reaching halfway up to their knees. Goofy wore a grey-brown button-up coat with matching pants and hat that wouldn't have looked out of place a century ago. Donald wore a red hat and had a green wool coat with a red sweater underneath. He, surprisingly, still didn't wear any pants.
"Now we're ready for the snow!" Donald said proudly and flung the door open. Xion and Sora ran out together, both extremely excited to see snow for the first time. Xion moved out into the untouched whiteness, warm under the new clothes, and looked around at the icicles hanging off of the trees. She formed an orb of light in her hand and held it up to the icicles, watching in silent awe as they sparkled.
Something soft hit Xion in the back of her head, and she ran a hand through her hair to find it wet. Xion turned around and looked at Sora, who was laughing at her and packing snow into a ball in his hands. So that's how it was going to be, huh? Xion smirked and grabbed a handful of snow for herself, then dodged out of the way of Sora's throw and tossed a snowball at him. It hit Sora in the cheek and Xion laughed at him, only for Sora's next snowball to smack her in the shoulder.
Their snowball fight went on like that around Goofy, Donald, and the Gummi ship. Goofy was lying down in the snow and making a snow angel while Donald was building a snowman. Xion jumped out from her most recent hiding spot behind the Highwind's right wing and waved her hand in the air, casting Aero to blow snow off of the trees and toward Sora. Sora rolled out of the way, but the miniature blizzard buried Goofy and Donald in snow. Goofy popped his head out from the new layer and laughed, then looked around in confusion.
"Hey, where'd Donald run off to?"
"I'm right here!" was the duck's muffled cry. A Donald-shaped snowman that wasn't there a moment ago struggled, and everyone burst into laughter.
"Sorry about that, Donald," Xion said as she started to dig through the snow coating him. "I got caught up in the moment."
When Donald's hand was free he cast a small Fire spell and melted the remaining snow around him. "Aw, phooey. I guess I kind of was, too." Donald shook the last few snowflakes off of him. "But that's enough fun. We should probably start looking around."
Sora nodded and brushed away the snow on his palms. "Right, let's go find our friends. Where do we start?"
A growling noise coming from a deeper, dark part of the forest caught Xion's attention. Dozens of pairs of golden eyes appeared in the cold darkness. "Guys," she said to the group. "I think we've got a problem."
A howl echoed across the forest and was soon accompanied by others that sent shivers down Xion's spine. Wolf-like Heartless leaped out of the dark forest and into the sunlight, where they surrounded the group. The Heartless were white and seemingly made out of animated ice, though their paws were surrounded by ethereal blue flames that radiated cold air instead of heat. The Heartless emblem was on their foreheads. One Heartless slightly larger than the others – the alpha, Xion assumed – howled and then jumped toward Sora, opening its icicle-toothed maw wide. Sora swung his Keyblade at the wolf but it faded away, turning transparent like a ghost and passing through the swing. When the Heartless landed on the ground behind Sora it spun around and released a blast of ice from its mouth. Sora's boots were its target, freezing his feet to the ground. Sora grimaced and sparked a fire on the tip of his Keyblade to melt the ice keeping him trapped. The instant the flame appeared the wolves recoiled, jumping back and spreading out.
"Gawrsh, I guess they don't like the heat," Goofy said.
"Then let's heat things up!" Donald shouted. He raised his staff into the sky. "Firaga!" A single fireball flew from his staff into the sky, where it exploded like a firework and rained down on the Heartless. Some tried turning ghostly to avoid the fire, but it seemed that they couldn't avoid magic as easily as physical attacks. Each one vanished into the darkness.
"Let's not go in the direction they came from," Sora decided.
And so they left Jiminy to watch the Gummi ship, marching through the snow-covered forest. As they continued on it became evident that they were on a mountain, what with the way the ground sloped. To the group's left was a sheer cliff that dropped into a ravine, and over in the distance Xion could see an incredibly tall peak with a blizzard swirling around it.
"Hey, look at that!" Sora pointed over to the cliff on the other side of the ravine. Xion had to squint her eyes to make out what exactly she was seeing in the snowfall. It looked like a sled being pulled by a reindeer, but it was moving awfully fast for some leisurely ride through the countryside. Xion gasped when she saw the white figures chasing the sled: more of the wolf Heartless. One of the people in the sled tossed his companion onto the reindeer's back and cut the reins. The reindeer jumped over the ravine safely, but the sled flew right off the edge of the cliff. The rider leaped out and grabbed onto the cliff edge on the safe side. Rescue came when his companion tossed a rope toward him, pulling him up. Xion sighed in relief and looked over to the Heartless across the ravine, where they snarled at their would-be victims.
"C'mon, let's go make sure those guys are okay!" Sora said, running toward the two of them and motioning for the others to follow. As they got closer, Xion could see that they were a young woman and man a few years older than her. The girl wore purple and blue, while the man wore brown.
Xion could hear the girl talking. "…I mean, sure. I'll let you tag along."
The man shook his head and sighed. "But if we're climbing a mountain you should probably-" He stopped and noticed Xion, Sora, Donald, and Goofy. "Who are you guys?" The reindeer and girl exchanged confused glances.
"I'm Sora. This is Donald and Goofy."
"My name is Xion. We're, uh… we're looking for someone." Vague, but not a lie.
The man raised an eyebrow at them. "Who would be crazy enough to be up in the mountains in this weather?"
"You mean like you?" Donald asked.
The girl gave a good-natured chuckle. "He's got us there. Hey, I'm Anna, and this is Christopher-"
"Kristoff," he corrected. "And my buddy here is Sven." The reindeer in question popped his tongue out and wagged his tail. Did he think he was a dog?
"So, um, what are you fellers doin' up in the mountains?" Goofy asked.
"We're looking for my sister Elsa. She went a little crazy – of course I was being reasonable the whole time, I don't know what came over her – and kind of… froze everything everywhere. So now we're finding her to stop it."
Xion looked around at the beautiful frozen landscape. "You mean it's not supposed to be snowy like this?"
"In the middle of summer? No." Kristoff crossed his arms. "And what Anna here isn't mentioning is that her sister got upset because Anna got engaged to a man she just met that day."
Anna gave an exasperated sigh as the others stared at her. "Hans and I are in love. Can we not go over this again?"
"That day?" Xion echoed with disbelief.
"Yes. Pay attention," Anna huffed. "So I went looking for Elsa, but I lost my horse, and I almost froze to death, and then I met Kristoff here and had him help me up the mountain. "Then she looked at the group, eyeing them up and down. "Hey, you guys look pretty tough. Would you mind helping us if those weird wolves attack again? Maybe we'll find your friends on the way to Elsa."
"Wait, wait, what?" Kristoff sputtered. "We barely even have enough gear for two people, let alone six!"
As the two of them argued, Xion turned to Sora, Donald, and Goofy. "What do you guys think?"
Donald crossed his arms. "I don't think we should get involved in family trouble."
"But we can't just leave them alone undefended. They'd be like a buffet to the Heartless." Xion looked over to Sora, and he nodded in agreement. Goofy was too.
Donald sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay."
"Great!" Xion turned back to the two, who were still talking in angry whispers. "We'd be glad to join you guys!"
"What? Hey, don't I get a say in-"
Anna cut Kristoff off. "Great! It's nice to meet all of you. Come on, the north mountain is, um… Uh…"
Kristoff sighed, grabbed Anna's hand, and then pointed it to the stormy peak Xion that had seen before. "This way."
The climb up the mountain grew harder, as the closer they got to the north peak the deeper the snow grew. At one point it was even up to Xion's waist. Donald had to ride on Goofy's back or he would have been almost completely covered. But then they came to an area where the snow evened out more, and where strings of frozen dew drops hung off of the pine trees, making them look silver.
It was there that darkness sprouted up around them. More of the wolf Heartless appeared, and this time they were accompanied by little Heartless that looked like the heads of Shadows trapped in ice cubes. Sora and Xion summoned their Keyblades, while Donald and Goofy backed up to Anna, Kristoff, and Sven with their own weapons drawn in case any Heartless got close.
Xion knocked away the first wolf to jump at her before it could become ghostly. It slammed into the ground and phased into the snow, like when a Shadow enters the earth. But since the wolf was just as white Xion couldn't see where it had gone. Icy Cubes swarmed around her while she looked for the wolf, and so Xion spun around while blowing Aerora around her. The winds buffeted the little Heartless until they broke apart.
"Was that magic?" Anna asked. "You have powers like Elsa!"
The wolf that had attacked Xion burst out of the snow behind Anna and leaped at her with its icicle fangs bared. Donald jumped between the two of them and released a burst of flame, destroying the wolf. More circled around the group to replace it, however, Sora called a Fira spell and spun the flames out in a circle around his body, striking the wolves—and unfortunately melting the snow in the immediate area, but that would be undone quickly. The Heartless vanished as quickly as they had come.
"Wow, that was impressive! It's like a miniature blizzard. Only not a blizzard at all." Xion looked around for the person talking. It certainly wasn't a familiar voice, but it had a light-hearted tone to it. The speaker giggled again somewhere beyond the trees and finally walked into view. It was… Xion wasn't sure what she was looking at. A walking, talking, snowman stood in front of them with a wide buck-toothed smile. He was kind of cute in an ugly way. "Am I right?" he asked.
Anna screamed and kicked the snowman, sending his head flying into Kristoff's arms.
"Hi!" the disembodied head said cheerfully.
"You're creepy," Kristoff replied. He tossed the snowman's head and Donald caught it.
"What's are you?" Donald handed the head to Goofy, who just laughed.
"It's like a game of hot potato, huh? A-hyuck!" With another laugh he tossed the head to Xion. The snowman's body was running around desperately trying to retrieve its head, and with a sigh Xion put him back to normal.
"Hah," the snowman sighed happily. All right, let's start this thing over. Hi everyone. I'm Olaf. And I like warm hugs!"
Recognition dawned on Anna's face. "Olaf? …That's right, Olaf!"
Olaf stared at her for a moment, arms outstretched. "And… you are?"
"Oh! Um, I'm Anna. This is Xion, Sora, Donald, and Goofy."
"And who's the funky looking donkey over there?"
"That's Sven."
"Uh-huh. And who's the reindeer?"
Xion and Sora covered their mouths to hide their laughter from Kristoff. He looked dumbfounded, but not angry, and just stared at Olaf with confusion.
"…Sven," Anna said at last.
"Oh. They're—oh, okay." Olaf shrugged. "Makes things easier for me."
"Olaf, did Elsa build you?" Anna asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Do you know where she is?" Sora added. "Can you take us to her?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"I'll tell you why," Kristoff said. "We need Elsa to bring back summer."
"Summer?" Olaf asked with awe in his voice. "Oh, I don't know why but I've always loved the idea of summer, and sun, and all things hot."
Kristoff smiled like he was talking to a little kid. "Really? I'm guessing you don't have much experience with heat."
"Nope!" Olaf said, completely oblivious to what Kristoff meant. "I mean, winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I'll be a…" He stopped, pausing to consider. "Happy snowman!"
Donald frowned. "But snow in the heat-" Sora slammed his hands over Donald's beak, muffling the last word.
"Don't ruin this for him," Sora whispered.
"So come on, what are we waiting for?" Olaf spun around. "Let's go bring back summer!"
Olaf ran off to the north, and Anna followed him while laughing. The others followed, Donald and Kristoff lagging behind. "Somebody's gotta tell him," Kristoff said. Donald nodded.
x-x-x
Prince Hans of the Southern Isles was a handsome man, he knew. But at the moment he was not wearing any fancy clothes or sitting in the warmth. No, he dressed as the people of Arendelle did, passing out blankets to the freezing citizens. Anna had trusted him to watch over Arendelle while she searched for Elsa, and he would do just that. "The castle is open. There's soup and hot glögg in the Great Hall," Hans announced to the town.
A short, thin, older man walked up to Hans. This was the duke of a neighboring country, who had originally come for the coronation that went so wrong. "Prince Hans, are we just expected to sit here and freeze while you give away all of Arendelle's tradable goods?" he demanded.
Before Hans could answer, a large figure and his short companion walked up to the two. Pete and Abis Mal were strangers from some far away land Hans had never heard of, and the two of them met him shortly before he had arrived in Arendelle. Despite having just met, Pete was awfully supportive. And he had such wonderful ideas he had shared with Hans. Ideas that the prince could get behind.
"Don't question the Princess, bub. She's left ol' Hans here in charge!" Pete said, crossing his arms. The duke stuttered and backed up, intimidated by Pete's size.
"That's right. And I will do everything in my power to protect Arendelle from treason," Hans said. There was a commotion from the town gates then, and a white horse without a rider burst into the square. Its eyes were wide and frantic. "That's Princess Anna's horse…" Why was it alone? "She must be in trouble. I need volunteers to go with me and find her!"
Pete looked down at Abis Mal at his side and smiled widely, while Abis Mal gave a shrug. "This is what we've been waitin' for, pal." To Hans, he said "We'll be happy to join ya, Your Highness!"
Frozen is a great movie and one I absolutely could not wait to get to. Luckily I just saw it again yesterday and so have a fresh memory, plus Disney put the screenplay up for free online.
Goofy's and Donald's winter clothes are from the movies Once Upon a Christmas and Twice Upon a Christmas, respectively.