Anna's POV

The ship we have chosen for this occasion was a small ship, which could be crewed with merely five people and was able to carry fifteen. There were, technically, five of us. Me, Elsa, Hiccup, Blue, and Nokk. Realistically speaking, there was only one of us who had the knowledge in sailing a ship, and it was Hiccup. He very well knew of this, and was willing to show us the ropes, luckily.

We hoisted the two sails of the ship, which I almost failed in doing because I pulled the wrong rope. Once the ship began moving, we stepped to the portside of the ship to bid farewell to the fellow Arendellians. Nearly all were present; the villagers, the shopkeepers, the sailors, the soldiers, the servants. But one saddest expression belonged to the snowman we all know and loved; Olaf. All of them looked worried for us, since the weather didn't look so friendly.

"Be careful My Queens!"

"Please return to us!"

"Take care!"

We kept waving our hands until they became a speck in the view as we exited the fjord. With that, Elsa removed her magic on Nokk so then he could get on with his job. The water horse hopped into the water and made an artificial current under the ship, accelerating its speed. It wasn't crazy speedy, but it was something. Blue the literal blue Terrible Terror was sitting on the bowsprit of the ship, posing proudly as if it was pointing to a certain direction as a navigator. Meanwhile, Elsa and I were acting behalf as Hiccup's pupils at the moment.

"Right, so this rope is connected to this mast," he patted the mast next to him. "Which connects the sails. Pretty easy, right? But pay attention to how you are supposed to make the knot."

He demonstrated a knot to the bars of wood on the mast, which I completely lost track of. My eyes spectated his hands making movement, and as if by magic, he made a knot that looked rather pretty and tidy.

"Did you follow it?" Hiccup asked, gesturing to the knot.

"Nope," Elsa and I replied in unison.

He sighed. This time, he gestured us to kneel to get a closer look. "Right," Hiccup undid the knot. "Pay attention—"

The light above us suddenly lit, lightning crawling along the clouds. Seeing it, I instantly curled down, sealing my ears. The pause was killing. Even after sealing my ears, the sound of the lightning that followed still made me jump.

I opened my eyes to see the others doing the same. Blue jumped onto Hiccup's lap out of the blue while visibly shaking. No sooner had we opened our mouths to say anything than the rain started falling. All of us were soaked.

"I'm afraid we are going to learn as we go," Hiccup looked at my sister. "Elsa, tell Nokk to keep the ship stable. And stay put by the bow to break any incoming wave."

"Aye aye, captain," she rushed her way to the starboard to call for the mythical creature.

"Anna, put Blue away in the cabin and stay there," he lifted the dragon and handed it to me.

"Stay there?" I accepted the dragon. "I can't just stay there and do nothing!"

"Why did I see that coming?" Hiccup asked, sounding annoyed. "Alright, go to the wheel after putting Blue away, we are going to steer the ship together."

I smiled with a victorious feeling. "Aye aye, capt! Come on Blue."

Hiccup dashed to the ship's wheel and I to the cabin with Blue in my arms. Once inside, I placed the dragon on my bed and signaled him to stay put. Whether the dragon stay put or not, only the universe knew. I rushed out of the cabin towards the ship's wheel to see Hiccup already struggling with it.

"Need a hand?" I helped Hiccup turning the wheel to the right, but somehow the force was larger than expected. I didn't expect the wheel to be this resistant.

"Errghhh… AH!" I lost grip of the wheel, and it spun uncontrollably. It inevitably made the ship turn radically, making everything onboard imbalance, including Elsa who was standing by on the bow side.

"Whoa! Everything okay back there?" Elsa asked, balancing herself by holding the mast of the ship.

With a hand, Hiccup caught the steering wheel. He whined in pain when doing so, so I gave him a hand right away after setting my balance. "We're okay!" I replied.

"Hold steady, Anna…" Hiccup warned me sternly. I nodded obediently. "Northwest," he showed me a compass, and it indicated that the ship was indeed heading to north west direction. "No matter what, we are going to northwest in order to reach Old Berk. Okay?"

"I understand."

He smiled, giving me a thumbs up. "Good. This twelve o'clock strip right here is the strip to indicate that—"

"Guys! Look ahead!" Elsa warned. We did as she told and saw what we would've liked to see the least on our journey. A stormy sea, with only lightnings illuminating the angry waves for brief seconds. I checked the compass, and indeed, the storm was between us and Old Berk.

Even Hiccup himself looked taken aback by the discovery. He took several seconds before he could continue his explanation about the strange strip on the wheel.

"… This strip is to mark the twelve o'clock mark on the wheel, also known as, the position of the wheel which makes the ship go straight forward. Understand?" He didn't even let me reply before he warned Elsa, "Elsa! Kindly use your magic to break the waves, okay?"

"You got it!"

"Alright, just tell me where to turn, I'll help you," I said.

"For now, we'll keep avoiding the choppy water. But you'll never know if there's suddenly a wave from anywhere. Hopefully, that's where your sister comes in," he tightened his grip on the wheel. "Eyes forward."

I nervously gulped. We were really closing into the storm. Once in the area, the water that previously felt level were no longer level, even with Nokk helping to even the balance of the ship. Waves after waves crashed onto the ship's belly, splashing water to here and there. With my soaked outfit, I significantly felt colder and heavier, which, of course, were no help in the situation.

I followed Hiccup's movement on the wheel. When he turned left, I helped him out. When he turned right, I did the same. The irritatingly hard thing to do was fixing the ship's direction, other than the fact we needed to make it dead precise, the wheel was much more resistant to our force since the ship was going to a direction against our wish. It really was a sweat contest, but we didn't sweat at all under the storm. Did I mention the wheel was slippery as well? Not a single time where neither of us didn't grunt at how heavy the wheel was whenever we turned it to avoid waves.

Out of the blue, a giant wave revealed itself in front of the ship. Its height was multiple times of our own ship, so Hiccup signaled the woman for the job. "Elsa! You see this?"

"Yes!"

She sent a blast of ice that cut the wave and made a runway out of it. The belly of the ship soon climbed itself on the ice, and its weight slipped along the runway of ice seamlessly as the wave made it tilt upward. It was quite the surreal experience, ice-skating with a ship!

The ship crashed onto the water once meeting the end of the ice runway. It was a hard landing, but Nokk was there to soften it. Once back on the water, I immediately spotted more threats.

"More of them, Elsa! Starboard!" I signaled my sister the incoming waves. My sister turned to the starboard and cast more ice blast towards the waves, breaking them apart. More waves were crossing paths with our ship, and Elsa was not going to rest anytime soon.

"Bank right, Anna…" Hiccup instructed. We turned the wheel to the right. "Left!" He said. We turned to the left, not before wearing out my muscles, though.

"Guys!" Elsa called, pointing to portside. Not far from us and closing in, another gigantic wave!

"Elsa! Wait! No need to break it apart! We can ride over it!" Hiccup instructed, turning the wheel to make the boat go to the wave's direction.

"Are you sure?" I asked. Elsa gave a look that expressed the same question.

"I'm sure! Just hold onto something!"

We were getting so close to the gigantic wave, the ship started climbing it. The top of the wave was not folding yet, and it was not the moment I was looking forward to. We climbed and climbed, until I swore, we were almost as high as the lightnings above our heads. Miraculously, the ship cut through the top of the wave seamlessly. Afterwards, the ship slid down the back of the wave. Hiccup and I gripped the wheel as hard we could to keep the ship stable.

Finally, we scaled the wave safely.

"Whoo! That was fun," I commented.

"Why are we so low?" Hiccup asked.

"Low?" I raised a brow, not having a clue of what he was on about. He turned around to spectate the gigantic wave we just scaled crashing down. He turned around again to see ahead of us, to which there was nothing.

From the sky, a lightning lit the atmosphere for a brief second. That's when our jaws dropped. Another gigantic wave! It was almost like a wall of water!

"ELSA! IT'S NOW OR NEVER!" He yelled.

Luckily, she saw the obstacle ahead the same time we did. With both hands, she sent a blast of ice to cut the wave. However, the size of the wave was so big, Elsa's ice could barely cut open the obstacle. She attempted again and again. The wave kept breaking the ice with force. Soon, we learned that the wave was building with ice, and the pieces were brought towards us.

"ELSA! TAKE COVER!"

I saw her rushing behind the mast for cover before Hiccup made me kneel down with his weight, covering my body with his own.

CRASH!

She sat there against the mast, panting her lungs out. I knew that my sister was really powerful, but the storm had really worn her out. I slowly made my way to her.

"You're okay, Elsa?" I sat with her, crossing my legs.

She rolled her eyes to me. "Yeah…" she chuckled, "Just need to catch my breath. Wrestling with mother nature is really… tiring."

"Well, she is a thing of beauty, that's for sure," I gestured to the view ahead of us. We managed to pass the stormy sea, and were rewarded with a much calmer one with the Northern Lights above it. The lights reflected against the water, and gave the impression that the light also illuminated underwater. It really was a better sight to see than the previous lightnings.

There were several close calls, such as when Elsa's own ice crashed down on our ship, and when one wave crashed down on the ship, nearly drowning the ship if it were not for Nokk resurfacing us again. For our very first sailing, this was quite the experience. If it weren't for our teamwork, the dreamwork wouldn't be achieved.

"Have you ever seen the Northern Lights this close before, Anna?" Elsa reached for the light with an arm, and a strand of light nearly reached for it.

"Nope. Have you?"

"When I ran away from the kingdom on the ice castle, yes. But this is the closest I've ever been," she smiled.

"Sorry to interrupt, ladies."

We turned to the source of the voice. "You two should get changed and eat," Hiccup said, already having his outfit changed.

"I think I'll skip dinner," Elsa stood up, walking to the cabin. "I'll call it a day. Good night you two."

When Hiccup was not looking, Elsa glanced to me and gave me wink. Oh, I wonder what it could possibly refer to.

"Do you plan doing the same?" Hiccup asked.

I turned to the Viking. "I can't skip dinner, I'm starving," I replied, shoving my belly with a hand. "Do you?"

"I can't either."

"You know what? Wait here, I'll go get changed and grab the food," I stood on my feet. "What would you like to eat?"

He merely shrugged. "Whatever's available."

"One 'whatever's available' coming right up!"

He cracked at the joke, "don't make me wait."

Giving him a quick nudge, I left to the cabin. Inside, Elsa was already asleep on her bed. I heard a small hint of snore from her. She was not the snoring type, but I knew that wrestling with mother nature was not easy, and she did that for two hours straight.

Oh. Blue was sleeping next to her. Neat.

With as little sound as possible, I changed my outfit with dry clothes. After doing so, I opened the food cabinet and pondered at the sight of these ingredients in front of me. What could I possibly make from some bread, some beef, some lettuce, and some mayonnaise?

"Sandwich will do."

I knew there's a certain art in making a sandwich, but I was no cook. I smashed everything together and made two sandwiches on two different plates. Proud with my work, I took both plates out of the cabin, with again, as little sound as possible.

I came over to Hiccup who was sitting by the sail mast. I sat my butt down next to him. "Your 'whatever's available', kind sir."

He accepted the plate, inspecting it for a brief moment. "You sure you haven't put too much mayonnaise in it?"

"What are you talking about?" I took a bite of the dish and my mouth was immediately filled with excess mayonnaise. My tongue barely sensed anything else but the mayonnaise. Some even dripped off from the edge of my lips.

"That's what I'm talking about, chef," he nudged me playfully. "Oh well."

Hiccup took a bite of the sandwich, mayonnaise dripping out of it. His eyes immediately widened upon chewing the food. "Mhmm… Sho… gud…"

After swallowing our bites, we proceeded to laugh together.

"Well, I'll probably learn how to cook with your mom, if we have the time," I suggested. Hearing the suggestion, Hiccup shook his head in disagreement.

"Oh no. She's um… terrible. She's a terrible cook," he confessed.

"Is she?"

"Well, she has spent twenty years of her life with dragons, Anna. Not humans. I wouldn't be surprised if she's able to eat raw fish, to be frank," he took another bite of the sandwich.

I nodded in acknowledgement. "True…"

The sudden bizarre movement of the auroras in front of us attracted our attention right away. The lights began to look as if they were trying to reach the water. Inevitably, some reached us, low enough for us to feel a weird sensation when trying to reach for them. Mother nature was being kind at the moment, and she's utterly beautiful when she is.

These auroras reminded me of a story. Perhaps it could be used to break the ice.

"I once heard a story about the auroras," I began.

"Mm, tell me about it," Hiccup replied.

"Mother told me this story. It is said that our ancestors, those who have passed away, either humans or animals, the aurora is the place they head. As in their afterlife," I explained.

"So that's Valhalla up above?" Hiccup pointed to the Northern Light.

"If you put it that way, yes. That's Valhalla," I smiled.

"Looks like a pretty cool place to live in. Mkay. What's the story?"

I put my plate away on the floor to begin my narration. "There were once three hunters. They were brothers! These three brothers once tried to kill a mother bear who only tried to protect her cub. The fight took place on a very high glacier, and the oldest of the brothers was badly hurt. The bear was approaching the other two, and this was noticed by the oldest brother. He decided to do what's best, and it was to pierce his spear into the glacier, making the ice below the bear to crack, bringing the bear and himself down."

"Oh my," Hiccup spoke.

"But with that, the other two brothers were saved by this selfless act of love. When they were trying to find their brother, they found out that the bear was still alive. Determined to have a revenge, one of the brothers searched for the bear. His brother tried to snap him out of this intention, as it would not change anything. However, he didn't listen, and went on a hunt for the bear. Later on, he found the bear on top of a mountain and killed it. His revenge was now fulfilled, but at what cost?"

He placed his chin on his hand. "Go on."

"The peak of the mountain in which the revenge took place was actually no ordinary mountain; it was the very spot where the Northern Light would touch the earth. The spirits of the Northern Light were not happy to see the sadistic revenge. Seeing so, they turned the brother into a bear. Afterwards, they took the poor spirit of the bear with them. Remember the brother who tried to hold this other brother back from killing the bear? He later 'found' that the bear had killed his very last brother. And the cycle of revenge continues…"

I clapped my hands once. "The end."

He followed it with more claps. "You sure your mother told you this story?"

"She didn't," I smiled cheekily. "It's one of the books in the library. You should read it sometimes."

"Heh, I knew it," he scoffed, finishing his food and wiping off excess mayonnaise on his mouth. "What happens next?"

"What happens next… is unknown. The book which tells this story had some pages ripped off. I don't know who did it," I sighed.

"Aw."

I finished my food with one big bite. Indeed, I put too much mayonnaise, but I didn't know just how much was too much. Hopefully it wouldn't make either of us sick.

Silence once again filled the air. But it wasn't awkward. There was an entire show of colorful lights ahead of us, and I was nowhere nearing the point of being bored by it.

However, rephrasing the current situation really made me realize just how perfect the moment was. Perhaps it's time to tell him how I truly feel.

My heart once again began to race, heat building up inside of me. I looked to the Viking and saw how beautifully reflected the Northern Light on his green eyes. They were not looking at mine, but they rolled to do so when he realized that I was looking at him.

"Mmm… Something wrong, Anna?"

Oh goodness, those eyes. As if by magic, they hypnotized me. I was so drawn into them. I never replied. Instead, I leaned in towards him with closed eyes and closed the gap between our lips.

"Mm!"

I pressed my lips against his, and pulled away after a good three seconds or so.

Then I realized of what I did.

"Oh my god… did I really…" I covered my mouth, eyes bulging out. "H-Hiccup! D-Did I?..."

He replied nothing. He seemed to be as shocked as I was. Soon, I was consumed with embarrassment. "OH MY GOD, I'M SO SORRY!"

I arched my back forward to hide my red-hot face.

"A-Anna… is there… something you'd like to get off your chest?" He asked, still sounding shocked.

Slowly but surely, I lifted my chin to face him, though I still kept the bottom half of my facial features hidden away with my hands. "I… I'm sorry…"

He sighed. "Don't be. Just…"

From the looks of it, Hiccup seemed to be doing badly in finding the words he was looking for. He gestured me to help him out.

I took in a deep breath, and let it out. "What I did previously, I s-swear, I'm sure I was not myself in that moment. My body just pulled me to—"

"You… were not yourself?" He asked nervously.

"Y-Yes! I mean… I don't know… when I looked to your eyes, I was just…" We connected a gaze once again. "Goodness… I'm so sorry, Hiccup…"

"It's… okay," he chuckled nervously. "Don't sweat it. I uh…" He scratched his hair.

"…"

Silence filled the air once again. But this time, it was much more awkward. The silence was killing me slowly. To prepare myself, I readied each word on my tongue, and mentally counted down.

"I… have feelings for you, Hiccup."

He looked up to me, then away from me, remaining silent for a moment.

"… Since when?" He asked.

"Mm… recently? We've been friends for years, but my eyes were recently opened… telling me just…" I chuckled sheepishly. "Just… how much of a good guy you really are, Hiccup."

"… Define… good guy?"

"You're… handsome. You're… strong. You're… smart. You're… amazing. And I am… running out of words already, ha ha ha…" I scratched my head. "All because no words can explain just how amazing you are to me, Hiccup."

His eyes widened, his cheeks were visibly red. Mine, which were already red, reddened even more!

"T-that last part was not spoken by me! I swear, it's like somebody else took me over…" I excused.

"But did you mean it?"

I slowly smiled, looking down to the floor. "Y-yes?... And since… we are going on a dangerous adventure, I thought it would be a… waste… not to reveal my true feelings for you."

We remained silent once again, both of us finding the floor a more interesting thing to see. Seeing the process of the water drying on the wooden deck was a fascinating experience.

When Hiccup cleared his throat, I looked up to him.

"Y-you… tasted like mayonnaise," he commented. Embarrassed by the statement, my hand immediately gave my lips a wipe to make sure they were clean.

"And um… It… It's been too platonic, between us, to be frank, Anna, um…"

My heart dropped slightly at the words 'too platonic'.

"And I was… pretty comfortable with it, and I think I would prefer the um… platonic relationship that we've always had," he replied. "I'm sorry."

My heart completely dropped at the reply. But I was not going to give him the slightest hint that I was disappointed with his response. I toughened myself up mentally.

"… I-It's okay…"

I couldn't make myself look into his eyes. I was just rejected by my crush, and it hurt me. I remained silent for a little while, until he grabbed my plate and stood up. He told me about something with going to bed, but I was so entrapped in my thoughts that I didn't hear him.

SPLASH

I looked up to see Nokk standing on the water next to our small ship.

"Nokk? Need something?" Hiccup asked, approaching the water horse. Not taking another moment, the horse bit Hiccup by the hand and pulled him into the water.

"WHOAA—"

"HICCUP!"

I am… terrible in writing romantic scenes. Please, bear with me.