roadwornthorlion asked:
How about Elsa (with her apparent amazing horse wrangling skills from when she tamed the Nokk) overhears that there is an unruly horse that is causing chaos, so she immediately runs to go calm it down herself.
Ryder came to his sister and Elsa in a hurry. He was panting so hard that the latter wondered for a moment if he didn't angered Gale who somehow got their revenge by taking the air out of his lungs.
"What is it, Ryder?" Gulped fast Elsa, to finish eating as he seemed in utter panic.
The Sami tried to catch his breath first, his hands on his thighs. "It's… The… Merchants… On… The road… Up…"
Elsa nodded at each of his words, trying to understand. After a while, wheezing in worry, he let it all out in one go.
"Their horse got scared of the Giants living there and now it's running around making a mess everywhere!"
Honeymaren and Elsa exchanged a look, and no word was necessary before the Fifth Spirit turned around and ran to the pond they were eating by.
"Nokk!" She called, and barely half a second later, a splash jolted out of the surface and a water horse trotted to her.
The Water Spirit had felt her emotions, and knew she needed their help.
"Do you know where the merchants are?" Asked Elsa, a frown on her face as she approached her hand.
The Spirit nodded as she touched their muzzle, turning them to ice. They had seen the way the Giants tried to calm down the horse and made everything even worse.
"Great. Lead me to them!"
In one swift move, she turned and jumped on their back without even the need of a stirrup. Honeymaren smiled at the show, never getting tired of how expert she had become. Ryder was too busy holding up to her and trying to get his lungs back to notice that the blonde now was mounting a Water Spirit turned to ice which shone in the day light.
"Yah!" Exclaimed Elsa, and they dashed to the horizon.
She joined the procession of merchants way faster than she thought; in fact, less than a minute after. Nokk was acting urgently, and after all, Ryder did the distance on foot. She saw goods and commodities spilled on the grass, and people picking it up, helped by very sorry Giants. A couple of merchants ran to her.
"Are you Elsa?" Asked a man.
"Of course she is", said a woman. "The Northuldra said that she had an ice horse. Do you think that it's something common here?"
"Well, it's an enchanted forest…"
Elsa had to physically restrain herself not to laugh. She nodded as seriously as she could.
"It's me."
She lifted her head, looking around. "Where did your horse go?"
They indicated the same direction, which was the open lands opposite of the Giants territory. It made sense, and Elsa thanked them as she dashed there. She asked Nokk to stop completely when she saw something down the valley.
The horse was easy to spot for it was pitch black, and the forest has just entered in Spring season. Among the flowers, the scared horse really was out of place. Elsa forgot the emergency for a moment and smiled at the beauty of the animal, and its elegancy despite being a small horse. It clearly was a work horse - which made sense if it belonged to the merchants with a cart - and she bent her head as she admired it, its mane floating around as they ran in scared circles.
Nokk neighed in a specific way.
"Don't be jealous." Chuckled Elsa. "It's just a very beautiful horse."
The Water Spirit snorted.
"You really can't help being susceptible, uh?" Smiled the blonde, shaking her head. "Come on, let's try to calm it down."
She nudged the iced sides of Nokk, and they galloped to it. However, when it approached, the work horse instinctively ran away. Nokk was remarkably fast, and generally had a morphology more suitable for race than the strong horse, so the distance was shortened in no time.
When the black horse understood that they were in danger, they rose on their back legs, and tried to hit them with its hooves. Elsa felt anger scouring through Nokk and they immediately countered, which the Fifth Spirit disagreed on.
She put her hands on Nokk's neck. "NO! No violence. Stop it!"
The Spirit obeyed, and the black horse seemed scared of her power, because it shook its head and ran away. Elsa sighed. This was going to be tough.
"Okay, new plan." She frowned.
Nokk turned their head to her.
"I'm gonna need your help. Team work."
The magical horse neighed.
"Yeah, I know, we're already doing team work", admitted Elsa. "But I mean, let's do it separately this time."
On that note, she jumped down, and Nokk suddenly stopped, looking at her like she was crazy, their bright eyes widening. Elsa saw the way their ice ears twitched, and felt their worry in her core.
"I'll be alright. You, go to the river over there. And make a big wall of water. I'll position myself on the other side of the valley and raise a big wall of ice. We'll create a hollow with no way out. Then I'll calm the horse down."
Nokk neighed again, protesting.
"It's gonna be fine!" Assured Elsa. "I fought you, remember? I'm not scared of a regular horse. Besides, my magic is stronger than ever. Trust me, okay?"
The Water Spirit stared at her. They never doubted about her power, and had enough respect to believe her no matter what. So they bowed in agreement, and galloped to the river where they jumped and turned back to liquid water.
Elsa turned around with a determined expression and searched for the black horse. It had stopped to run and was looking around, hesitating between continuing down the valley or entering the woods again. Elsa took advantage of its hesitation and ran to it, already forming giant walls of ice on one side as she ran.
She felt like it was the fight against Bruni all over again. Only, this time she didn't need to aim or search for the foe; she was just tracing a perimeter. On the corner of her eye, she saw Nokk doing the same thing, elevating the water to impressive heights. With the wind, sounds of gasping people came to her ears, and she didn't need to look around to understand that they had some audience.
Elsa couldn't help but smirk. Well, if they had started a show, better make it end like one. With one big move of the hand, she closed her half circle, Nokk joining their water with her vertical ice, and the black horse almost bumped on it, surprised that the landscape briskly stopped.
"The race is over!" Declared Elsa, her breathing short.
She slowed down her run, because the horse now twirled around, and she had little space to calm them.
"Hey. It's gonna be okay."
It neighed, and she rose her hands softly, proving she meant no harm.
"I won't hurt you. I'm only trying to bring you back to the merchants."
She knew that all emotions of horses could be seen in their eyes, and inspected them. The black horse was panicked, for sure, but also intrigued by her.
"Can you understand me?"
There was no reaction, and Elsa wondered for a moment if she wasn't dumb to think that regular horses could understand her, Bridge or not. She walked to it now it was still, and slowly, she put her hands to their nuzzle.
"There. There. I know that Giants can be really scary." She said in a gentle voice. "I was really freaked out too the first time I saw them. But they're actually really nice! A bit noisy and heavy, I admit it. But nice."
She chuckled, and the horse seemed to calm down. Elsa saw something shimmer on her side, and gasped thinking someone had made the enormous mistake to come with a weapon, but it was just Nokk looking at the scene from the inside of the water wall. It was like a wave had stopped in its roll, and staring intensely with two glowing eyes.
"Nokk, this is creepy. Don't do that."
The Spirit neighed in a way that Elsa couldn't determine was a snort or a laugh, and twirled in the water. The blonde slowly stroked the black horse's neck.
"Here. See? We don't want to hurt you."
After a while, the horse seemed to calm down, and she asked Nokk to lower their wall as she melted hers. She however advised them to do it slowly to not splash the horse and ruin their trust bond. Slowly, the water went back, and returned to a normal current in the river.
Elsa heard distant claps, and the two horses looked behind her. The merchants approached, happy that she solved the problem. It occurred to the blonde that it was the first time the merchants' horse had come in the region.
"Well, welcome. Stuff like that happen a lot, here. You're gonna have to get used to it." Smiled Elsa, and Nokk nudged her shoulder, splashing it with water.
She petted the black horse's nuzzle and showed the flowers they were stepping on. "Those are really good, by the way. We use them in our soups."
The black horse bent its head down and started to graze the colorful flowers. Elsa then realized her mistake and turned to the merchants, and grinned.
"Oh, this is a bit counterproductive. Now it won't want to leave for a long while."
The merchants laughed along and thanked her deeply.
Author's Note: the title of this drabble is a John Mulaney reference. I'm not even sorry. THERE IS A HORSE LOOSE IN A HOSPITAL. Check it out on Tumblr.