A/N: Apologies, I forgot to upload one time, so now this story is one chapter ahead on AO3, I've been meaning to catch it up but in the meantime feel free to head on over there if you want to know what happens next...

Don't look down. That's the trick to dealing with heights. Anna stands about five metres above the cold rushing water of a muddy creek. There is barely enough room on the teeny tiny ledge for her paws. But it's okay, she can do this! So far, she has managed to escape the wasps' nest with only two stings. The pain still throbs, sharp and focused, in her leg, but she's largely distracted by the hot, burning itch spreading over her skin from the fire nettle. She is so close now, the zappo vine's bright yellow leaves reflect the sun up ahead. With fresh determination, she inches forward, slowly, but surely.

The vines are a pain to break off without hands or tools, but to be fair, the side of this steep incline is inaccessible by human feet anyway. All she can do is try to messily rip them off with her teeth. It takes quite a bit of momentum to rip the vines from their sturdy roots snaking deep into the cliffside, and they taste foul. Bitter and unripe, leaving a fuzzy feeling in her mouth.

As soon as Anna registers her paws slipping, it is too late. She is falling. It happens so fast, she is barely able to turn herself the right way up. Thorny vines rip her skin as she tumbles down, knocked about and battered by all the rough branches. Finally she lands in the mucky banks, staring up into the bright blue sky as cold water rushes over her.

When the shock of it wears off, she is just about ready to give up, but she draws on her last iota of strength and grabs her basket, hoping to at least salvage the vines she did pick. Alas, it is too late, and they are already being carried downstream faster than she could possibly catch them. It took her hours to inch her way down along the incline to where those coveted vines grow. It was a terrifying, itchy and painful journey and she just does not have it in her to go through all that again for a stupid leaf.

Instead, she manages to haul herself up onto the rocky bank, out of the mud, avoiding the thorny vines, and heavy from the water logging her fur. It will be a long walk back to the edge of the forest and an even longer walk back to town. She has been trudging along the bank for about half an hour when she spots it. A pale purpley-blue light, signifying magic, dots the leaves and branches up ahead. At first she thinks it's just a trick of the light. Perhaps the remnants of some rotted moondrop mushrooms, or a patch of energy left behind by a spirit. After all, there are lots of magical plants, creatures and spirits in this forest. It's not particularly odd to see patches of magic glowing here and there. What is odd is that it seems to run in a line, like a snail trail, or something that's leaked down into the creek and back up the other side.

I've left some trails...

Anna dares not get her hopes up. Dreams are just dreams, she can't handle any more disappointment. What are the chances a witch like Elsa would bother with such temperamental and complex magic as dreamwalking just to do something so unimportant as to ask Anna, of all people, if she is okay? And why wouldn't she be okay?

None of it made sense, really, because it was just a dream.

Still, she follows the trail, despite what they say about curiosity and cats, telling herself it's not because of any silly false hope that a friendly face or a kind hand might be waiting for her. Who knows, maybe she will find a fairy circle. Or a spirit well. Or some other useful plant she could bring back to substitute the Zappa vine.

The trail - and it soon becomes clear that it definitely is a deliberate trail - leads around trees and rocks, through hollow logs, avoiding obstacles and thick shrubbery, shimmering extra bright in dark shady areas. Hope bubbles in her stomach, along with anxiety. It had better be a permanent trail, whatever it is, otherwise she could find herself lost in the forest, and then she will be in a real pickle.

Anna would just about fall to her knees if her legs worked that way, and kiss the ground. She had not dared to hope. But here it stands in front of her. In all its humble, cobblestone glory. Elsa's cottage. It is so well hidden by thick foliage that she would have missed it if not for the trail leading right to the mossy walls. So, her dream was real. She is welcome here, and certainly is in need of help. Despite this, she hesitates.

Anna takes a deep breath, and scratches at the door. A minute passes with no response

She does not see or hear anything coming from the cottage, and tries to breathe through the rising anxiety of being unwanted or turned away. Hopefully she is not interrupting any important ritual. Elsa said that she doesn't really practice magic these days. But then she proceeded to brew a potion, gaze into a crystal ball, and fly on a broomstick. So, Anna will take that statement with a grain of salt.

Anna scratches at the door again. She is beginning to shiver, and her heart is beginning to sink. She can't hang around here all day, completely waterlogged, as the afternoon cool change comes in. She'll freeze.

In desperation, she creeps around the side of the house, marvelling at how small it is. The kitchen alone felt so spacious last time, but she must be misremembering. A window is ajar around the back, amongst thick ferns, and Anna jumps up onto the sill.

There lies Elsa on top of her patchwork quilt, resting against a mountain of little cushions. Sunlight streams in sideways, casting a long rectangle of light over the middle of her body. Her room is simple but so cosy. Vines are growing through the walls, hanging down in the corners. A simple tapestry is attached to one wall, and a brown old-timey map on the other. On the headboard of her bed, a series of little candles are melted down to different heights, in amongst various crystals glowing with fresh magic. The window sill is home to several tiny seedlings poking their fragile green shoots out of little jars, cups and mismatched containers.

Elsa is reading - or she was, until she noticed Anna.

'Anna!' She places the book down gently and holds her hand over her mouth again. It's an oddly posh kind of gesture. 'Oh my goodness. What happened to you?'

'Oh, you know, just a little adventure. A man versus wild type of thing. Watch out, Bear Grylls!'

Elsa's eyes are wide, and she doesn't laugh, just takes a towel from her little chest of drawers and lays it on the bed, 'Come here, let's get you cleaned up.'

In no position to argue, Anna leaps onto the bed, grateful to finally feel something soft under her scratched up paws. She doesn't even want to think about what a mess she must look like right now. Too exhausted for pride, and definitely not keen on licking all this mud off herself, she collapses onto the towel and allows Elsa to begin drying her.

It almost feels nice to be massaged beneath the towel, until it doesn't - Anna can't help but flinch at the pressure on her wounds, and Elsa notices immediately, unwrapping the towel and gasping 'Oh, you're bleeding! Wait here.'

Anna waits, already feeling a little better with some of the mud and moisture gone. The towel is certainly looking worse for wear, but without the ability to see red tones, she can't tell how much she has bled. She isn't too worried though. It seems impossible to worry in a room this pretty.

Elsa returns with a bowl of warm water and a little leather case full of first aid items. Her fingers move gingerly through Anna's fur, wiping mud off each tuft of fur more thoroughly with a smaller, damp cloth, occasionally muttering to herself. 'Your skin's all red… it's really caked in there… Did you get bitten by something?'

'Might have met a wasp or two.' Anna usually refrains from this level of affection, not just for the sake of her dignity but because there's a certain vulnerability in this state. An intimacy that can go from comforting to weird real quick. But something about the surety of Elsa's fingers reassures her. The quiet authority in her gentle hands turns Anna floppy, and she rolls onto her back, oddly relaxed, looking up into Elsa's focused face.

'Sorry, this might sting…' Elsa moves onto the bowl of warm, salty water, prying patches of fur apart, searching for the wounds. Frowning. Apparently giving up for the moment, she takes Anna's front paw and gently pries her toes apart, dabbing between them with the washcloth. She sighs and releases the paw, looking down frustratedly.

Anna rolls onto her side, a little concerned, 'Sorry. You don't have to, like, nurse me back to health or anything. I'll be fine. It's just nice to be dry!'

'This would be much easier in human form.'

'Yeah,' Anna looks down at her other paw and licks it, tasting a hint of blood. It's time to finish cleaning herself up. 'A lot of things would be. But I guess there's not much I can do about that right now.'

'I could switch you. If you like.' Elsa closes the first aid case and sprawls on her bed sideways, so their eyes are level with each other, 'It's up to you, of course. But it might be good to clean those wounds properly.'

Pausing mid-lick, Anna looks up slowly, unsure if she's understood properly. 'But… But I'm soul-bound to someone else. I mean, isn't that really difficult?'

Even if it's possible, she's quite sure it's a breach of etiquette. Hans is supposed to be the one who guides her in magical matters. It feels like a betrayal.

'Not as difficult as people make it out to be. It's quite magically taxing, because I don't have the…' She gazes into the distance, searching for the right word, 'authority? I guess? To override your current state. But it's not like I have anything better to do.'

It's quite the offer, and Anna's immediate response is to refuse. She doesn't want Elsa to do anything taxing, or waste all her mana. But the thought of having a little bit of human time is so alluring. Even though there's not much she can do out here in the forest without her phone or any money, she craves the familiar feeling of her human body, long legs, arms, hands and fingers. After such a long time walking on four legs, she feels the same ache in her soul, the sense of incompleteness that she felt all those years before, when she was confined to human form. The incompleteness that all familiars feel when only one half of their spirit is able to breathe, that led her to hastily signing her soul away.

'Would you really? That would be so…' Amazing. Incredible. Such a relief. She can't say that, it would let on that it's been such a long time. It would reveal that she's unsatisfactory at her job, and Hans is rarely pleased with her. She sits up straight and tries not to look too excited. 'Nice. That would be really nice.'