Elsa smiled softly as she finally was able to cross through the dense thicket and walked into the little clearing that led to Arendelle's bay. Garret was facing the water and away from her, his crossed legs barely avoiding the gentle and steady come-and-go of the silvery-blue line, steam and vapor flowing outwards from his lap where his busy hands surely bustled.

If he had heard her–and he had—he didn't give it away.

She walked even closer and peeked over his shoulder. As expected, he was sculpting. A hobby she had discovered he'd started practicing on his own a few weeks prior.

"Enjoying some time off?" she asked.

He straightened his back, ready to stand up. "Hello Majes—"

"There's no one with me," she interrupted while gingerly tucking her legs underneath her as she sat at his right and gave soft taps on his shoulder on the way down.

"Oh. Hello Elsa, then." He lifted his face toward her and threw one of the toothy smiles she adored. "Not really, to be perfectly honest. I'm using whatever down time I can these days, but I'm sparring right now."

Completely confused by his answer, Elsa slightly shook her head.

"Sparring?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Elsa glanced left and right. He was the only person she had met ever since she'd relieved her guards near Arendelle's main gates. What was he on about?

"May I ask with whom?"

"Anna," Garret deadpanned. He continued working on his sculptures as if nothing noteworthy had come out of his mouth.

Completely bewildered now, Elsa squinted her eyes and searched harder. She leaned back, forward, on the sides. No one behind her, no one in the forest, and no one near Garret. Perhaps her eyesight was betraying her, but she was certain she hadn't missed anyone. And Anna was usually a very hard person to miss. Unless she had inherited invisibility magic…

Her eyes settled on the calm water level in front of her, and she sighed when she considered a different hypothesis.

"Please, tell me she's not underwater…" she said, lifting a single finger to her temple.

Spring was warm in Arendelle, but soaking herself in the traditionally cold fjord's bay was going to make her sick. Again.

Garret chuckled heartily. "I can't tell you how funny it is that it wasn't even the wackiest option." He cast his magic one last time and put the resulting sculpture near his right ankle. "No, unfortunately, she's not. She's all the way there, inside the woods," he explained as he pointed far into the green canopy.

Not a single word of his explanations had erased her incomprehension, and the blank look he bore as if everything was completely normal wasn't helping.

"And you're sparring through telepathic abilities?" she asked.

"She wanted me to train her to be stealthier…" he said with a shrug.

And then everything clicked. He had used that to sneak his way out of a sparring session. Elsa uttered an audible Ooooh and her eyes widened in understanding at his mischievous smile, but she pouted and crossed her arms when she fully realized what he had been doing.

"That's not very nice of you... She wants to be better."

"I'm just waiting for her to do what I told her to," he explained with another shrug and a clearly repressed grin. "She's supposed to find me without alerting me, but I can almost hear her steps from here. And it gives me a good excuse to work on these."

Garret took a handful of his statues and it wasn't until then that Elsa got a good look at his little icy sculptures. Unlike the first few times she'd caught him, these weren't small animals. Instead, the first was a surprisingly accurate frozen Kristoff, the second an overjoyed blue Anna, and the last a portrayal of herself, a tender smile on her face.

"Garret, these are…"

He beamed fondly at them. "Been a while since I wanted to get better at them. It's still rough, but I'm getting there."

"One step at a time…" Elsa whispered. She gently picked the three mini-versions of her family and marveled at the level of detail. That was something she could easily mistake for her own creations.

Garret met her gaze, smiled once more, and closed his eyes. "Break seems to be over, though."

Elsa was confused again and prepared a question, but wasn't given enough time to ask it. Ten seconds later, Anna darted out of the green mishmash of spring leaves, her practice sword brandished. She was out of breath, walked on her toes.

Did he hear her? I hadn't even…

"I got you!" Anna cried victoriously. "I avoided all your traps. I got you and now you gotta fight me!"

Garret's grin didn't disappear, but this once it looked excited to Elsa's eyes. He stood up, dusted his pants, and summoned a significantly smaller version of his bow.

"That you did, Princess. I promised you a fair battle." He then turned to Elsa. "Excuse me, Your Majesty," he said with a graceful bow and a discreet wink. "Would you do us the honor?"

Elsa chuckled to herself, the familiar warmth he had been by now the most common instigator building up in her chest. She delicately lifted a hand, asking for his to help her up without a word. He indulged her immediately, and she couldn't contain a bright smile that hurt her cheeks. She stood back a little to leave the two adversaries enough space to let their blades talk, raised her left hand and with her right clutched Garret's statues against her heart.

"Are you ready?" she asked. At both their confident nods, she sliced the air and boomed, "Please don't hurt each other!"

While their weapons struck and clashed, Elsa examined the ice sculptures for the third time and blinked back a tear.

One step at a time.

A/N: Here I am. I know. Been a few months now. I'm terribly sorry, but the end of 2020 was hard. COVID took a heavy toll on my family. I hope everybody's doing okay out there, and please wear your masks.

Just in case, I say it here. PaT is not abandoned. I want to see it to the end. But writing what I wanted to write in the state I was in... It wasn't possible. Passion and Trial will continue. I can't tell you when, but I can tell you it's not gonna be in an eternity. Most probably a few weeks. So please look forward to that. I realize most of my readers don't read these extras, but I just wanted to say this, and I couldn't just update the main story with an author's note. So here's a deleted scene from Passion and Trial's first chapter.

I hope you like it, and see you soon!