One year later… (R 11, E 8½, A 5)
"And that night, I came home king of Arendelle," Agnarr concluded, blowing out the candle in his hands.
Rapunzel, Elsa, and Anna stared at him in shock. When their father promised to tell them about his visit to an enchanted forest, they hadn't expected anything like what they heard. "Wow, Papa," Anna breathed, "that was epic! Whoever saved you, I love them!" She dramatically fell back against Iduna, who smiled at her and playfully covered her face with her shawl.
Agnarr chuckled. "I wish I knew who it was."
"I wish I could have been there," Rapunzel commented. "It sounds amazing!"
"What happened to the spirits?" Elsa asked, always the one to show concern first. "What's in the Forest now?"
"I don't know," Agnarr replied with a sigh. "The mist still stands. No one can go in, and no one has since come out."
Rapunzel was sitting pressed up against Iduna, and felt the queen stiffen at the king's words. "So we're safe," Iduna assured the girls, wrapping an arm around Rapunzel and Elsa and drawing them close for comfort.
"Yes, but the Forest could wake again," Agnarr warned. "And when it does, we must be prepared for whatever danger it may bring." Elsa stared at him wide-eyed and nodded, meanwhile Anna was occupied in playing with the tassels on her mother's shawl, and Rapunzel was wishing that they could talk about something more cheery.
"And on that note," Iduna cut in, "I think it's time to say goodnight to your father." Rapunzel breathed a sigh of relief at the change in subject, though she noticed that Elsa was still staring thoughtfully down at the mattress.
"Aw!" Anna whined, sitting up. "But I still have so many questions!"
"Save them for another night, Anna," Agnarr told her, pulling at her toes playfully as Iduna picked up the candle that the king had left on the mattress and placed it on a nearby dresser.
"You know I don't have that kind of patience," Anna grumbled ruefully.
"Yes, I think we've got that figured out," Rapunzel teased, and Elsa smiled at the two of them.
"Why'd the Northuldra attack us anyway?" Anna asked as Agnarr walked out of the room. "Who attacks people who give them gifts?"
"They must have had a good reason," Rapunzel pointed out, trying to be positive. "Maybe they thought we did something bad."
"Maybe," Anna agreed, looking unsure.
"Do you think the Forest will wake again?" Elsa asked her mother curiously as the queen sat down on the edge of the bed.
Iduna was silent for a moment, then quietly replied, "Only Ahtohallan knows."
"Ahto-who-what?" Anna asked, and at the same time Rapunzel asked, "What's that?"
The queen hesitated, but finally answered a moment later. "When I was little, my mother would sing me a song about a special river called, 'Ahtohallan. It was said to hold all the answers about the past: about what we are a part of."
"Wow," Rapunzel and Anna breathed, while Elsa stared at her mother in wonder.
"Will you sing it for us?" Elsa asked. "Please?" The three girls looked at the queen with their best puppy-dog eyes.
Iduna hesitated again, but then smiled and nodded. "Okay." She moved forward to the center of the bed and leaned back against the headboard, pulling Rapunzel, Elsa, and Anna close to her. "Cuddle close, scooch in!" Then she began stroking Anna's nose with her finger and smiled at Elsa and Rapunzel. Then Iduna started to sing.
0o0o0o0o
Around ten minutes later, Rapunzel was just about to drift off to sleep with she heard the soft pitter-patter of little feet, followed a moment later by, "Elsa? Psst, Elsa!"
Rapunzel bit back a groan and refused to open her eyes. On her pillow a few inches away from her face, Pascal chirped irritably. Anna loved to wake her sister and cousin up in the middle of the night, and while Rapunzel quite enjoyed the midnight games, she also was fond of her sleep, and at the moment she was too tired to get up and play. "Anna, go back to sleep," Rapunzel heard Elsa mumble, "or go play with Rapunzel."
"Hey, no fair!" Rapunzel grumbled, finally opening her eyes and sitting up to glare at her cousins. It was dark in the room, but Rapunzel was almost certain that she saw Elsa smirk.
"I just can't!" Anna exclaimed dramatically, flopping down on Elsa. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play!"
"Go play by yourself," Elsa scolded playfully, shoving Anna off the bed. The five-year-old landed on the floor with a thud and instantly began to pout.
Rapunzel glanced out the window at the Northern Lights, which she had first noticed in the middle of Iduna's lullaby. "Just because the Lights are shining does not necessarily mean we have to play," she told Anna, rolling her eyes slightly and wishing she were in dreamland.
Anna glared at her, then stood and dramatically tossed her hands in the air. "Oh, come on, you two!" she exclaimed exasperatedly. "Don't you wanna build a snowman?"
At that, Elsa opened her eyes and sat up, and she and Rapunzel looked at each other with a grin. "Alright," Elsa consented, climbing out of bed. "Annie, Punzie, please remember to put boots on. I don't want you complaining about your feet turning into ice cubes."
Anna rolled her eyes. "That was one time!"
"Yeah, and I don't think she'll ever let us live that down, will you, Els?" Rapunzel asked her cousin, who smirked and shook her head.
Rapunzel and Anna quickly found their winter boots and slipped them on. Rapunzel told Pascal to stay in the room, since the snow was too cold for him, and less than five seconds later, Anna was dragging her sister and cousin down the stairs. "Come on, come on, come on!" she chanted while Elsa tried in vain shushed her. Rapunzel would have been shouting as excitedly as Anna if it wasn't for the fact that she was eleven years old and knew better than to do such a thing in a castle full of sleeping people.
The girls reached the ballroom, all three of them giggling excitedly, so much so that Elsa was the only one who remembered to close the door. "Do the magic, do the magic!" Rapunzel and Anna begged.
Elsa laughed. "Rapunzel, you've got your own magic. Why don't you do yours for a change?"
Rapunzel shrugged and shook her head. "There's no point, since there's no one hurt. The most that'll come out of it is that you two will gawk at my glowing hair, which gets rather uncomfortable at times."
Elsa shook her head, smiled, and then sparks of icy magic appeared between her hands as she formed a snowball. "Ready?" she asked. Rapunzel and Anna nodded eagerly, so Elsa tossed the snowball high in the air, where it burst into a multitude of snowflakes.
"This is amazing!" Anna cried, dancing around in the falling snow.
"You said it!" Rapunzel added, also dancing around, even though it might be a tad improper.
"Watch this!" Elsa said, drawing her sister's and cousin's attentions to the ground. She stomped her slippered foot, and a sheet of ice quickly spread over the ballroom floor.
"Can I have some skates please?" Rapunzel asked. Elsa nodded and waved her hand, causing skates made of ice to form on the bottom of Rapunzel's boots. Anna, however, was content to slide around without skates. Rapunzel then began twirling around the ballroom, laughing and whooping with glee.
"So, other than skating, what should we do first?" Elsa asked, creating a pile of snow for Rapunzel to land in, since the older girl was about to slam into a column.
"Build a snowman!" Anna cried.
"Sounds like a plan," Rapunzel agreed as Elsa dissipated her skates. "I'll make the bottom ball, Anna, you roll out the middle one, and Elsa can make the head. Sound good?" Elsa and Anna nodded, and the three princesses immediately began work on their snowman.
Several minutes and a trip to the kitchen for supplies later, the girls had finished their snowman. "Hi, I'm Olaf!" Elsa announced in a low, silly voice as she waved the snowman's arms. "And I like warm hugs!"
Anna, who was sitting on her father's throne, clapping her hands excitedly. "I love you, Olaf!" she exclaimed, jumping off her seat and running over to the snowman before embracing it.
"Hey, how come Olaf gets all the warm hugs?" Rapunzel teased from her spot beside Elsa. "My name's Rapunzel, and I like warm hugs, too!" Elsa and Anna grinned, and less than a second later the three girls were hugging each other-and Olaf. For the next little while the three princesses played in their winter wonderland. They skated more, had a small snowball fight, and laughed and giggled as only three little girls could.
"Hang on!" Elsa instructed Anna as the younger girl leaped out of a snow pile that she had landed in after zooming down a snow slide. Elsa caught her sister with another snow mound, and then Anna jumped again, and so the game continued.
"Can I do that next?" Rapunzel asked, watching her younger cousin.
"Sure," Elsa replied, focusing on catching Anna, who was starting to go a bit too fast. A moment later, she exclaimed, "Wait, slow down!"
Anna, however, didn't hear her sister, and proceeded to jump faster. "Again, again!" she cried.
"Uh, I've got a bad feeling about this," Rapunzel commented, biting her lip as she glanced back and forth between Elsa and Anna. She was debating on whether or not she should run over and catch her cousin.
"You think?" Elsa replied hurriedly and a bit sarcastically as she scrambled to keep up with Anna. Then, the unimaginable happened. Frantic with worry for Anna, Elsa lost her balance and slipped on the ice. She landed on her backside, and her head hit the ice-covered floor with a small crack. Then she sat up, and she and Rapunzel stared at Anna in horror. "Anna!" Elsa cried as the five-year-old joyfully leaped off of the tallest pillar of snow yet-one that Rapunzel estimated to be around ten feet or so tall. Elsa shot out her hand in a feeble attempt to catch her sister, but then her magic launched out of her hand, flew through the air, and struck the right side of Anna's forehead.
With a grunt, Anna dropped out of the air and thankfully landed on a snowbank before tumbling to the icy floor. She came to a stop finally and just lay there in a crumpled heap. Elsa and Rapunzel stared at her for a moment in shock, sure that the younger girl would jump up any second, laugh, and tell them she was perfectly fine. She didn't.
"Oh, no," Rapunzel breathed as she and Elsa jumped up and raced over to Anna.
Elsa reached the small girl first, and instantly knelt on the ground and rested Anna's head on her lap. "Anna!" she breathed fearfully.
Rapunzel gasped a moment later and motioned to the side of Anna's head, where a white streak was snaking its way through Anna's red hair. "Look!" she exclaimed.
Elsa saw it and burst into tears, bending over and hugging Anna's still form close to her body. "I...I k-killed her!" the eight-year-old wailed.
Rapunzel shook her head after seeing that Anna's chest was still rising and falling rhythmically, although slowly. "No, you didn't," Rapunzel assured her cousin. "She's just unconscious."
"Same difference!" Elsa exclaimed, jerking away from Rapunzel's hand. "Don't touch me; I'll hurt you, too!"
Rapunzel felt a little hurt by this, but at that moment she was a bit more concerned about the frost that was quickly spreading over everything. "Elsa, it'll be alright," Rapunzel tried to soothe.
"No, it won't!" Elsa practically snapped, finally opening her eyes and glaring at her cousin. "She's gonna d-die, and it's all my f-fault!"
Rapunzel didn't answer. She simply didn't know what to say. Instead, she quietly and gently wrapped her hair around Anna's head, just like she had done three years ago when the youngest princess had sliced her forehead on the kitchen table leg. "It'll be alright," Rapunzel repeated. "Just try to stay calm."
Elsa finally took notice of what her cousin was doing and calmed a little. "Do...do you think it'll work?" she sniffed.
"Of course," Rapunzel replied confidently. "It has to," she mumbled. She hadn't entirely meant for Elsa to hear it, but she did anyway and gasped fearfully. Rapunzel sighed and then concentrated on what she was doing and tried to remember the correct words. After all, she didn't use her magic very often, mainly because Agnarr and Iduna had suggested that she let the doctor do his job, unless it was something deathly serious-which hadn't happened as of yet, but may have been happening at that precise moment-or something so small that a doctor's visit wasn't necessary, such as a scrape or bruise. Finally, Rapunzel was sure she had the right lyrics, so she began to sing.
"Flower, gleam and glow,
Let your power shine,
Make the clock reverse;
Bring back what was once mine.
Heal what has been hurt,
Change the fate's design,
Save what has been lost;
Bring back what once was mine.
What once was mine."
When Rapunzel finished, she carefully unwrapped her hair, and upon further inspection, Elsa was happy to find that Anna's cheeks were full of color again, and she wasn't as cold as before. "Did it work?" Elsa asked eagerly.
"I guess we'll find out," Rapunzel answered with a smile.
A few agonizing seconds later, Anna's eyes fluttered open, and she gave her sister and cousin a confused look. "Why are you staring at me?" she asked.
Elsa and Rapunzel glanced each other, joy filling their eyes, and then embraced Anna so tightly that the five-year-old was certain she was going to suffocate. "Anna, I'm so glad you're okay!" Elsa exclaimed.
When the hug ended a minute or two later, Anna drew back, still confused. "What happened?" she asked.
"What do you remember?" Rapunzel asked back.
Anna was silent for a moment as she searched her memories. "Uh, I was jumping on snow mounds," she finally answered, "and then I felt something cold hit me. Then I was really cold for a while, but then I started feeling warmer, and then I woke up to see you staring at me all scared."
Elsa quickly explained what happened, and Anna quietly took it in, her eyes wide. "I'm so s-sorry, Anna!" Elsa cried, breaking down into sobs again and burying her head in her hands.
Another moment passed, the only sound that of Elsa's crying. Then Anna leaned forward and wrapped her big sister in a comforting hug. "It's okay, Elsie," she said cheerfully, "it was just an accident. I forgive you, and I'm really sorry for not listening to you when you told me to slow down."
"Really?" Elsa asked, glancing up. "You…you don't h-hate me?"
Rapunzel scoffed and barely held back an eye roll at Elsa's ignorance. Sure, the girl was scared, but still. Of course Anna could never hate Elsa. She absolutely adored the older girl. Anna confirmed this a second later by exclaiming, "Hate you? Never! I love you, Elsa!"
Elsa gave a watery smile through her tears and hugged her sister again, mouthing a 'thank you' to Rapunzel, who grinned and nodded.
"So," Anna said after a moment, pulling away from Elsa with a grin, "what are we gonna play now?"
Elsa forced a laugh and shook her head. "I think that's enough playing for tonight." She was still shaken up from the ordeal, and just wanted to go to bed and forget the incident ever happened.
"Aw!" Anna grumbled, crossing her arms and pouted. Elsa and Rapunzel couldn't help smiling, since Anna was acting like her normal self, which meant that there was no harm done.
"I think we may have a problem though," Rapunzel spoke up, pointing to Anna's head-which still sported the white streak.
Elsa gasped and reached for Anna's right pigtail. "Why didn't this go away?"
"Why didn't what go away?" Anna asked.
Elsa showed her the streak. "It appeared after I hit you," she explained nervously.
"Really?" Anna asked, inspecting the white strands. Elsa nodded with her eyes shut tight, sure that her sister would hate her now. "Cool!" Anna exclaimed, causing Elsa and Rapunzel to stare at her in surprise. "It's like I have a little bit of you with me all the time now," Anna added with a smile.
"That's…one way to look at it," Rapunzel agreed, preferring to be optimistic instead of worried, since the incident was over and Anna was fine. "Still, what are Papa and Mama gonna say when they see it? We weren't exactly supposed to be down here this late at night."
"Um…" Elsa replied, trying to think. "Anna, do you think you could wear a hat tomorrow until we come up with a better solution?" she finally asked. "Rapunzel can do your hair, and hopefully no one will see the white part."
Anna nodded and shrugged. "Yeah, I can do that." She was barely able to finish her sentence before a loud yawn overtook her.
"Okay, I think it's time for bed," Rapunzel pointed out with a teasing smirk at Anna, who glared in response.
"Me, too," Elsa added, standing and waving her hand to vanish all the snow and ice. The three princesses then crept back up to their bedroom and crawled into bed, a disaster having been averted. Or so they thought. For even though Rapunzel thought she had healed Anna, there would be several consequences that would greatly affect the family in the years to come.
A/N I can't wait to get into these 'consequences'. Some of them will be funny and ironic, and others…not so much. I've got quite the story planned for these three up until Elsa's coronation. Rapunzel might even get kidnapped… Just a warning, though, the isolation will still happen. However, it won't happen for quite a while yet (we've got several years to go yet), and when it does, it's due to slightly different reasons and circumstances. Basically, it'll be more necessary, and will lead to some interesting things at the coronation.
Oh, and Cassandra will meet up with Rapunzel again, but she's not gonna be part of Hans' entourage for the coronation. No, these two girls will meet again most likely around six years before the coronation. As for the story that leads up to it…well, you'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, I've got the next chapter started, and I'll post it when I finish. Have a nice day! Next chapter-The Next Day.