Chapter 26
Right after the others left Cinderella's castle.
"And just how are you going to do that?" Kristoff asked.
"I'll figure it out."
"You'll just 'figure out' how to make the spirits less dangerous."
"Yep," Anna replied. "Elsa said the spirits are too dangerous to help us defeat the Enchantress, so they'll just have to be less dangerous."
"Anna, Elsa was with those things for seven years and she never pulled that off. How are you going to do it in a couple of days?"
"I told you, I'll figure it out. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some letters to write."
Anna had pretended not to be worried, but she wasn't sure if she could actually try training the spirits. Writing the letters was a welcome distraction to the thought, but she had just finished. She had handed the letters off to be delivered and left to ask herself, "Now what?"
Anna took another look at the emerald statue that was Cinderella's Prince Charming. What could she do to help stop someone as powerful as the Enchantress?
"Don a worry, Anny," said a small voice that came from below. Anna looked down and saw two mice, one thin, the other fat, dressed similarly to the royal guard. Anna recognized them as Cinderella's friends.
Gus, the fat one ran to the prince's emerald foot and started crying on it. "Oh ho ho ho ho! Princey gone forever!"
Jaq, the thin one, shook his head and said insistently, "Doh, doh, doh, doh! Princey be back! You see!"
"He will?" Gus asked.
"Sure, he will. Cinderelly find a way to do it."
Anna found Jaq's optimism inspiring, but she wasn't convinced. "How do you know, Jaq?" Anna asked.
Jaq crossed his arms proudly. "Cinderelly always find a way."
"That must be nice," Anna said sadly. "I wish I could do the same."
Gus asked, "Uh, duh duh. What does Anny need to find a way to do?"
Anna sat down next to the mice in a graceful position and explained with melancholy, "There are these spirits that are friends of mine, but they can be dangerous. I need to teach them to know when and when not to fight. I need to teach them to be more forgiving and gentle and slower to anger. But I'm not sure if I can do that. My sister couldn't and she's better at everything than me."
Jaq scratch his chin, deep in consideration. "Hmmmmm. Very tricky."
"Uh, duh. Yeah, tricky," Gus joined in, also scratching his chin.
"Well, Cinderelly teaches pretty good. Jaq-Jaq and Gus-Gus didn't know a lot of things before we meet a Cinderelly."
"Did you talk before you met her?" Anna asked.
"Nope," Jaq answered. "Cinderelly teaches the words."
"How? How did she teach you things like that?"
Jaq said, "Well . . . all this walking and talking stuff is human things. Very human things. I think Cinderelly does it by treating us like we a human too."
Anna was captured by a train of thought. "Human," she muttered.
Gus added, "Gus-Gus remember meeting Cinderelly. Cinderelly talk nice and be patient. Then Cinderelly give Gus-Gus clothes and a good name."
Anna looked at them warmly. "She treated you like you're human, so you started behaving more human. That's it! The spirits! They need to be more patient and understand the way humans can be! Elsa and I are supposed to be the bridge between humanity and magic. So all I have to do is bring the spirits some humanity. Thanks Jaq. Thanks Gus. I think I can do it now."
Anna got up and the mice waved at her. "Buh bye, Anny," Gus said.
"Good luck!" Jaq added.
"Goodbye!" Anna said over her shoulder as she ran off.
"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Kristoff asked.
Anna determinately answered, "It has to. This is the only way to get to the Enchanted Forest in time." Anna quickly figured out which direction the Enchanted Forest would be in. Anna breathed nervously for a few seconds before she made the attempt. She sang four notes hoping that would do the trick.
A couple minutes passed. "Any second now," Anna said.
"He's not coming," Kristoff deadpanned.
"You . . . don't know that."
"The spirits can't hear you from here."
"Kristoff, Ahtohallan used this call to summon Elsa to the Enchanted Forest all the way from Arendelle."
"Sure, but you don't have magic powers and Arendelle is a lot close to Ahtohallan than we are now."
"I don't think distance is a factor," Anna explained.
"Then maybe magic is the only factor."
Anna sighed. She didn't have ice powers, but she was told that Elsa and herself were the two sides of the bridge between humanity and magic. The two of them together are supposed to be the Fifth Spirit. Maybe there was some kind of connection deep down inside that she could reach. Anna asked, "Kristoff, I know you think this whole idea is nuts, but I need you to not say anything for a while and let me considerate.
Kristoff did think this was nuts, but that was trumped by his desire to be supportive. "Alright, I'll shut up."
Anna closed her eyes and thought about the spirits. She remembered her visits to the Enchanted Forest and interacting with them. Ever since the spirits calmed down seven years ago, she had felt some sense of connection to them. "I know there's something here," Anna thought. Anna saw a flash of pink and purple fire despite her eyes being close. It was the only thing she could see. Startled by the event, Anna opened her eyes and recoiled. "Whoa! Was that Bruni?" Anna thought. "Did I just reach out to them? Maybe this is progress." Anna closed her eyes and tried again to connect with the spirits of fire, water, earth, and air. Anna saw another flash of pink and purple flame. "That's it. We're connected, aren't we? I'm your connection to humanity." Anna felt a breeze on her face; which was strange because her hair and clothes would not move. She saw rippling; like something was dropped in a lake. She could hear the far off sound of rocks toppling onto each other. Anna sensed something like gates opening inside her. "I like the open gates," came an echo in her mind. "We are never closing them again." In Anna mind, those words symbolized the way things should be. Anna opened her eyes. Anna sang the four notes, again, this time with more confidence.
Anna and Kristoff didn't see anything on its way. And yet . . .
"He's coming," Anna stated happily.
"How do you know?"
"I feel it," Anna breathed.
And . . . then . . .
"No way," Kristoff said, amazed.
A swarm of leaves were carried by a stream of wind flew quickly to them. The wind of leaves raced around them in circles. Anna laughed ecstatically. "Hello, Gale!" Anna said to the spirit of wind. "We need to get to the Enchanted Forest real quick. Can you take us there?"
The wind picked up. In fact, it picked THEM up. Anna and Kristoff lifted off the ground and climbed higher and higher.
Kristoff asked in panic, "You never drop people, do you, Gale?!"
Off they went, flying high above everything to be seen. The houses, the fields, the horizon all passed beneath them in a hurry.
"Told you it would work!" Anna teased.
The journey was pleasant enough. Kristoff calmed somewhere around a quarter of the way through. The sights they paced over were diverse. And Gale was careful not to blow too much wind into their eyes, saving them a lot of misery.
The hard part was the destination.
"What happened here?" Anna breathed.
Gale had brought Anna and Kristoff to the Enchanted Forest. He set them down in the middle of the Northuldra's camp; what was left of it at least. Most of the tents had been burned while others had been crushed. Some of the trees had been burned or snapped in half, but not many. Many of the tree had been spared the disaster; they weren't the target. Partially scorched bits of cloth from the tents had been repurposed to cover the . . . the bodies that hadn't been buried yet.
Anna could barely breathe at the sight of it all. Kristoff came close and held her hand. "What could have done this?" Anna asked.
A horrible though came to mind. If this much devastation came from fire, then that could mean . . .
Anna said, "Gale? Blow some wind into the leaves to my right for yes. Blow some wind into the leaves on my left for no. Got that? My right means yes; my left means no. Did any of the spirits do any of this?"
Gale swirled into the leaves on Anna's left, blowing them around in a miniature tornado.
Anna sighed with relief. Then she felt bad for asking that first. "I'm sorry," Anna said. "It's just that . . . you know how things used to be. I just had to make sure."
Gale blew around some of the leaves on Anna's right. Apparently he understood.
"Now, I can tell there were survivors. Those . . . bodies didn't cover themselves," Anna said, solemnly. "Could you lead us to them?"
Gale blew around some of the leaves on the right and flew off. He stopped at a certain point and waited for them to follow.
"Come on, Kristoff!"
Through the forest, they followed Gale. Soon enough, they could hear the sound of shovels digging into the earth. It were no other sounds to cover it up.
"Hey!" Anna exclaimed as she saw eleven members of the Northuldra amongst too many graves.
She ran to join them, followed by Kristoff. The Northuldra were pleased to see them, but almost nothing could bring them great joy at the moment. Yelena, the Northuldra's leader asked somberly, "Have you seen it?"
"We did," Kristoff replied. "What happened?"
It seemed to hurt Yelena to think about it, but she told them, "It was . . . a dragon."
"A dragon?" Anna asked. "How many of you made it out alright?"
Yelena looked around at the group around her and answered, "Eleven."
"This is it?" Kristoff said, horrified.
Another member of the Northuldra named Ryder chimed in. "We don't know why, but that thing looked at us and chose to leave us here. It could have burned us with the rest of them if it wanted to."
"Didn't the spirits try to stop it?" Anna asked.
Honeymaren explained, "The dragon came while the earth giants were asleep. We have no idea why, but Bruni and the Nokk didn't come. Gale was there, but he barely survived the attack."
"That thing could overpower Gale?!"
"It kind of makes sense," Kristoff said. "Fire needs air to burn and Gale is made out of air."
Anna said sympathetically, "We are so sorry for your loss."
Anna noticed something about the group of survivors. Only two of them were women; Honeymaren and Yelena. The rest were male and some of them were very young. Anna privately thought, "They can't repopulate. Yelena is too old and it's not like Honeymaren is going to get pregnant. If they don't find more people or leave the forest to join another population, they'll die off."
"Where is Elsa?" Yelena inquired.
Anna replied, "You're going to want to sit down. I think I know who sent that dragon." Anna thought, "But why would the Enchantress want to attack THEM? Are they just considered guilty by association?" That thought made Anna furious.
Author's Note: It won't be the next chapter I upload, but there will be one more Anna flashback. I've actually written that chapter and it's a lot better than this one.
So . . . no one cares that I killed off most of the Northuldra, right? I don't really hate them, but I've never felt much for them. You might be wondering, "Well, if you don't hate them and you didn't think we would care, why did you even bother to kill most of them off?" I assure you, this is all a part of my master plan. In time, it will all make sense.