The Mountain
She really should have brought a thicker coat before coming out here.
They've been climbing for at least an hour now. She glances back every once in a while, toward the dwindling form of the Mantis's dorsal fin jutting from the base of the valley amidst the white and grey. A sharp wind blows against her from the summit ahead, cutting through her meager cloak in icy daggers. Despite the snow swirling down from the sky, the air is crisp and clear, and her eyes follow the curving slope of the mountain looming ahead, all the way up to where its jagged peak pierces the heavy clouds.
She has no idea where she's going, but that's no excuse to stop walking.
"Anna, where are we going?" There's a hint of exasperation in Cal's tone as he scans the horizon with a pair of clunky-looking binoculars.
"Up," she answers determinedly.
"Yeah, I got that. And what's up there, exactly?"
"Some buildings. Destroyed ones."
"Right."
Snow-glazed shards of gravel crunch underfoot. She glances over her shoulder to see Cal give himself a shake under his poncho, rubbing his arms as his breath fogs in the air.
"Any particular reason we're so far north?" he groans, returning the binoculars to the folds of his coat. "Looked like there were nice tropical meadows closer to the equator. Probably destroyed buildings there, too, don't you think?"
"It's not so bad here," Anna says defensively. "I think I'm starting to get used to it!" She tries not to let her own shivering carry into her voice.
Cal folds his arms over his chest.
"Anna, be honest with me. Do you have any idea what we're going to find up there?" He raises his hands placatingly at her indignant glare. "I'm only asking because last time I waltzed into an ancient ruin, I almost got my head taken off by a bunch of angry warrior robots shooting giant energy beams out of their chests."
Anna's eyebrows fly up. "You what?"
"Don't try to change the topic," Cal deadpans.
She lets out a defeated sigh.
"Look, I don't know anything about this place, this mountain… but it's like my body remembers even though my brain doesn't. Those ruins are calling to me, I can't explain it. You said I might be Force-sensitive. What if this is the Force trying to show me something?"
Cal's expression turns sober. "Just promise you'll be careful."
"I promise." Anna flashes a grin. "Besides, if there are killer robots, sounds like you've already got experience."
"Somehow that doesn't reassure me." Cal gives a rueful shake of his head.
She turns back toward the peak. The sight of the first of the skeletal ruins poking into view from behind the mountain's sharp spine sends a thrill of excitement through her, and she lengthens her strides with renewed vigor. As she continues to climb, an entirely different thought tickles the back of her mind.
"Cal, how long has it been since Nightsister Merrin disappeared?"
Cal hops deftly from rock to rock beside her, seeming to defy gravity with each leap. At her words, he falters briefly.
"Five months and three days." There's a tremor in his voice.
"You really think she's still out there? After all this time?"
Cal takes a flying leap over a crevasse as Anna struggles to climb around it. How does he make it look so easy?
"She isn't dead," he states stubbornly. "I would've felt that."
Anna tightens her grip over the edge of a large stone, pulling herself over with a grunt.
"Were you and Merrin together?" she blurts.
Cal glances sharply at her, stopping in his tracks. A crease forms in his brow as he absently brushes snow from his poncho.
"It's complicated," he finally says. Pursing his lips, he turns and resumes his hike, clearly looking to end the conversation.
"Do I remind you of her?" Anna doesn't know what has her feeling so bold, but the words slip out before she can stop them.
Cal is silent for so long she begins to wonder if her question was drowned out by the wind. When he does reply, she has to strain her ears to make out the words.
"No, you don't. But that's probably a good thing."
The silence returns, heavier than before. As they continue to climb, Anna's legs begin to scream with fatigue. Abruptly, she's struck with a strange sense of unease.
There isn't a single tree on the mountainside. There should be trees.
"Something isn't right here," she mutters.
"What the matter?"
"There should be trees."
The wind ruffles Cal's hair as he glances around.
"Well, the craters definitely aren't a good sign. Looks like this planet was hit by a meteor shower fairly recently."
Anna squints up at the sky, and the sense of unease swells like a wave. For an instant, the clouds aren't grey, but black. She blinks, and a sudden flash of red sears down behind her eyelids.
Her foot catches the edge of a rock and she flails her arms to stop herself from tumbling into a crevasse. What is happening to her?
"Cere said the hyperlane data was labeled 'Operation Dark Sea,'" she says, scrutinizing the terrain as she cautiously places her next step. "Do you know anything about that?"
"Doesn't ring any bells, but I'm no expert on Imperial operations." Cal's eyebrows knit together with concern as he searches her gaze. "Are you okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine."
She glances back to the sky to find the clouds the same pale grey as before. Great, now the dreams won't even wait until she's fallen asleep.
She takes a deep breath and keeps climbing.
When they finally crest the ridge, she collapses onto the side of a large boulder to catch her breath. The snow has stopped, but the mountain air still bites at every centimeter of exposed skin, and the sweat dampening her clothes only accentuates the cold. She hugs herself tightly, shivering as her breath is whisked away by the wind.
"Anna," Cal calls. "You might want to come see this."
With effort, she pushes herself off the rock and follows Cal's finger with her eyes.
"Whoa."
The view from the air did no justice to the true scale of the ruins now laid out before her. A clear ray of sunlight shines through a crack in the clouds, illuminating the mountainside in a golden swath. Walls of smooth marble extend from the slope, seemingly hewn from the very stone itself. Rising from behind them, a single broken spire of clear blue crystal twists toward the sky, entwined with girders of gleaming silver and casting scattered prisms of light down onto a glossy field of mangled grey and black.
The wind changes directions and a faint hum resonates through the air. It takes her a moment to realize the sound is coming from the tower.
"Is that ice?" Cal asks, his jaw swinging like a door hinge.
"Come on!" Anna cries excitedly, adjusting her cloak around her shoulders. Suddenly, the cold doesn't seem to matter nearly as much.
The slope on the other side of the ridge is steep, but she moves with a new reckless abandon, hopping between rocks and leaping over crevasses, heedless of the fatigue in her muscles. As she draws closer to the ruins, details resolve on the surface of the marble walls: long, straight scars where the stone has been carved away; vast spiderwebs of fractures, the cracks gleaming black and glassy; entire missing sections that have completely crumbled into the snow. The crystal tower casts a long shadow over her, showering her with shards of refracted light. A jagged slab of bedrock the length of the Mantis protrudes from its side, lodged between the silver struts like a javelin thrown by some giant.
Only when she turns her gaze down into the valley does she realize she's standing right on the edge of a crater. The bowl of flattened stone stretches so far into the distance that it fades into the mists.
Footsteps crunch up behind her.
"So, what's the plan now?"
"We go inside," Anna says, setting her jaw.
Cal sighs theatrically and turns to face the closest of the marble walls. Taking two steps back to wind up, he dashes forward and throws himself into a flying leap. Just as he's about to slam face-first into the hard stone, he flips upward into a second jump that definitely defies physics, reaching up and grasping onto the top of the ledge. Pulling himself onto the wall, he casually dusts off his knees.
"You coming?" he calls down with a laugh.
"Show-off!" Anna huffs.
Scrambling around to the nearest break that she can find in the shattered wall, she clambers through the narrow crack, having to stop several times to untangle her cloak from the jagged stone edges. Emerging on the other side, she finds Cal already waiting for her on the ground.
"You sure know how to find the most difficult way to get over a wall," she mutters.
"Seemed pretty easy to me," Cal says with a teasing smirk.
Anna rolls her eyes, shouldering past him with a good-natured shove—only to immediately lose her footing on the mirror-smooth floor.
"Yeesh!" she shrieks, throwing her arms out to stop herself from falling flat on her back.
"Whoa, careful!" Hands grab her shoulders, steadying her. She looks down at her feet and does a double take.
The entire palace floor is made of a single sheet of perfect, iridescent ice, so thick that the sunlight filtering in from the cracked ceiling disappears in its depths before ever hitting bedrock. Broken girders twist overhead, casting gnarled shadows onto the reflective surface. Raising her eyes, she finds the walls of the chamber largely crumbled except for the base of the tower directly ahead.
BD-1 lets out a faint series of beeps.
"What is this place?" Cal does a slow spin as he takes in the surroundings, his breath pluming in the still air.
Anna ventures toward the center of the vast chamber, marvelling at how her boots cast deep shadows down into the heart of the ice.
Above them, the wind shifts.
The tower sings its haunting note again, the sound reverberating down through the open ceiling and off the hard stone walls in a chorus of echoes. The sounds don't fade like they should—instead, they only seem to grow louder, pressing down into her head like a physical pressure, but it's not painful, it's… familiar.
She's vaguely aware of her legs carrying her forward in stiff, purposeful strides.
"Anna, where are you…"
Cal's voice registers in her ears, but it's drowned out by the ringing of the tower. Arcing double doors of translucent black ice gleam from the apex of a tall twin staircase at the other end of the chamber, beckoning to her with a mysterious pull. The black arch of the doorway grows in her vision as the world fades into the background. The wind isn't blowing anymore, but the note still sings in her ears with perfect resonance, and she can hear nothing else.
She reaches the base of the stairs and her feet lift of their own accord, carrying her up the obsidian steps slowly, reverently. She reaches the closed doors. There's a symbol etched into their center—a four-pointed star formed by fractal patterns like those of a snowflake, cut in half by the door seam. Time slows as her hand moves into view, fingers extending as they're pulled in by the star's gravity.
For an instant, the symbol seems to glow. The points of the star sear into her eyes.
Air. Water. Fire. Earth.
The ringing in her ears resolves into a voice. She can't make out the words, can't understand the language even though she knows that voice, knows those words…
Her fingers brush the cold surface of the ice and the center of the star flashes blindingly bright.
She's sitting on soft cushions in front of a roaring fireplace. The room is spacious, with walls of ornately-carved stone that stretch to a high, vaulted ceiling. Sunlight streams in from a window somewhere to the left, splashing the dark floorboards in front of her with streaks of amber.
"Anna? Are you paying attention?"
She turns her head to find a blond-haired man gazing down at her with his hands clasped behind his back, his sea-green eyes twinkling with amusement in spite of his reprimanding tone.
"Yes, Papa," she feels herself say. She bounces with impatience. "There are four spirits of nature, and when I grow up I'm gonna be one of them!"
"Anna, that's not what Papa said!" another child's voice chides from beside her. She tries to turn her head and get a look at the source of the voice, but her body isn't obeying her commands.
Her father shakes his head, chuckling.
"I see Iduna's been telling you bedtime stories again. She really needs to stop filling your heads with those fantasies."
"There are four elements of nature—Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water," the other child pipes, as if reciting from a book. "As Arendellians, we must each find our element and learn to control it."
"Very good, Elsa. Each of us came from nature, and there is a piece of nature within each of us—but it's up to you to find out what part of nature that piece came from."
Her hands clap together and she squeals gleefully. "Show me again! Do the magic, Papa, do the magic!"
"Anna! Be quiet when Papa is teaching!"
"It's alright, Elsa," her father laughs. "I have a feeling she'll learn better this way."
He walks around the room until he's in front of her, his thin moustache curling in a lopsided smile. She feels a gust of warm wind ruffle her clothes as he raises his hand and suddenly she's floating off the ground, her short pigtails tickling her face as they're battered by the whirling air hoisting her up. Her father lowers his arm and she plops back onto the cushions, giggling uncontrollably. He crouches down, gently brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.
"It's not just magic. It's part of who you are." His tone grows stern. "There are people far away beyond the stars who may fear us for what we do, but your powers are your birthright as a daughter of Arendelle."
"But Papa, when will I know what my powers are?" she hears herself ask.
"Soon, my sunbeam. Soon."
"Will they be like Elsa's?"
"Maybe, maybe not." Her father ruffles her hair before standing back up, getting another burst of giggles out of her. "But the four elements are not all that nature has to offer," he continues, his tone returning to that of an instructor.
He walks over to the fireplace, where a sword hangs above the ridged mantelpiece—a long, straight-edged blade of white steel sprouting from between forward-angling crossguards. Carefully retrieving the sword with both hands, her father turns with the weapon held horizontally in front of him.
"There is a fifth element. Though it lives within all of us, few can feel it, because unlike the others, it has no physical form. We call it Ahtohallan."
A spark of white lightning flashes along the length of the blade.
"Think of it like a bridge connecting the elements. Only those who learn to hear it, to understand it, may harness the true potential of nature."
Flickering embers float off the edges of the blade even as frost crawls over the silver metal. A tremor runs through the ground and a blast of wind dims the flames of the fireplace.
"Every ruler of Arendelle must find Ahtohallan. Only then will you be able to hear the will of nature, to guide our people with the help of the elements. As princesses of Arendelle, you will be trained to hear the call."
Her father shifts his grip on the sword. The air calms, the fireplace regaining its warm glow as the embers and frost fade from the gleaming surface of the blade.
"Whoa, Papa… that was epic," she gasps.
"What will the training be like?" the other girl asks quietly.
Her own eyes remain fixed on her father as he places the sword back in its slot over the fireplace mantel before turning back to face them with a smile. Damn it, why can't she turn her head?
"Yelena, the Priestess of the Earth, will begin your training tomorrow, Elsa. Until then, focus on your emotions. As my own mentor once told me, fear will be your enemy."
"What about me?" she hears herself ask excitedly.
"Anna, while your sister begins her training, Mathias will take you up the North Mountain to the Temple of Ice. Perhaps something will call to you there."
The last words are thick, as if her ears are suddenly plugged with sponges. The sunlight fades, casting the walls into shadow. She finds she can move again, so she stands and turns around in the deepening darkness, but the other girl is gone.
"You shouldn't be here." Her father's words are tinged with regret.
She whirls back to face him. Shadows hang from his cheeks like black curtains. It's too dark to see the floor.
"Why don't I remember you?" she whispers. She hears her own cherubic voice as if from a great distance.
"It was the only way we could protect you." Her father's eyes are downcast, his form translucent, evaporating into the surrounding void.
"Wait, no!" she cries. "Don't leave me!"
His eyes lock with hers, the only remaining light in the abyss.
"Be strong, my sunbeam."
Then her father is gone. She tries to shout, to dash forward, but her body is gone, too.
"... Anna, Anna!"
Her eyes snap open as the icy doors part beneath her palm with a shuddering boom. She flinches backward, yelping as her heel slips on the edge of the stairs. Footsteps rush up behind her. Cal appears beside her on the stone platform, breathing heavily, his right hand placed warily over the hilt of his lightsaber.
"That door could have been booby-trapped, you know," he says in a disgruntled tone.
Heart thudding in her ears, Anna jerks her head between the broken walls of the palace—temple—finally settling her eyes on the open doors in front of her.
"Cal, how long have I been standing here?" she asks, grabbing his shoulders urgently.
Cal flinches back in confusion.
"What do you mean? You came up the stairs and pushed the doors open."
"No I didn't, I…" She strains her ears. She can't hear the tower ringing anymore. Instinctively, she pats herself on the chest. Still solid. Still real. "I was somewhere else," she breathes.
Cal's eyes widen. "Another vision?"
She nods. "I saw my father again—and someone else. A girl. I think she was my sister."
A part of her knows she should be terrified of what just happened, but she isn't. The vision feels right in her head, like finally grasping onto a scene from a half-forgotten dream.
Or a memory.
Moving forward, she traces her fingers over the half-star on one of the tall doors.
"I think I've been here before," she whispers.
"Anna-"
She steps inside.
The room beyond is lit only by the dim shards of light filtering through the fissures in the tower far above. The long piece of bedrock she saw from outside looms overhead, so much bigger up close, the silver girders supporting it creaking precariously in the mountain winds. The floor here is cracked into slabs, with deep fissures running through the dark ice. A dais rises from the enter of the room, looking like it might once have held a statue.
"Anna, are you sure this is a good idea?" Cal hisses from behind her.
She ignores him, taking cautious steps into the chamber and toward the pedestal. Cal moves up beside her, his face drawn into tight lines.
"Something's off about this place," he mutters, pulling the lightsaber from his belt and twirling it in his hand.
A thin beam of sunlight streams down from a fracture above, glinting off the edges of something engraved around the base of the dais. As Anna draws closer, she realizes they're symbols—diamond-shaped runes like the tips of the star on the doors behind them. She crouches down, running her bare fingertips over the cold ice.
"What do they mean?" Cal asks quietly. "Can you read them?"
"They're… spirits. The elements. See here?" She points to the symbols one by one, stopping at the one etched with the heaviest grooves. "Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. This is a temple of ice."
Cal crouches down beside her, passing the lightsaber over to his gloved hand. "Here, let me try something."
"What are you doing?"
"Listening."
Closing his eyes, Cal presses the fingers of his right hand to one of the runes with a slow exhale. At first, nothing happens. Then a faint glow begins to emanate from the runes. An angry glow.
Trespasser.
The word has no sound, but it's the loudest thing Anna's ever heard. A deep tremor runs through the floor of the chamber. Cal's eyes snap open and he hisses, scrambling away from the pedestal and clutching his hand as if it's been burned. His face is deathly pale.
"Anna, we're not welcome here," he says, panic in his voice.
"What did you-"
Her reply is cut short as the chamber floor quakes violently beneath her feet. Two orbs of piercing blue flicker into existence from the shadows across the chamber. A low rumble like the grating of stone on stone fills the air.
Those are eyes.
A mountainous form rises from the darkness, so immense that its figure blots out the sunlight. Her hand flies to her blaster as Cal's lightsaber ignites with a shriek.
"Time to go," Cal yells, backing toward the doorway with his eyes fixed on… whatever that thing is.
A deafening roar shakes the tower. Anna barely has time to pull her pistol free of the holster as a gargantuan limb cleaves down at her like a falling tree. She whirls and makes a dash for the doorway, feeling a gust of wind as the fist smashes into the floor behind her with the force of a boulder.
Whatever it is, it's definitely not friendly.
"Cal, what did you do!" she shouts, skidding back into the main chamber and taking the stairs two at a time. She isn't fast enough.
The steps disintegrate beneath her as the wall explodes, sending shards of ice and marble raining down around her. For an instant she's weightless, then pain as the unforgiving ice of the chamber floor meets her body like a fist, knocking the blaster out of her grip. Gasping for breath, she pushes herself off the ground and sees a monster.
In the ruins of the doorway stands an enormous beast of snow and ice. Thick arms tipped with wicked crystalline claws converge to a hulking boulder of a torso, gleaming white under the light of the broken temple ceiling. The head, not quite separate from the body, glowers down with hollow eyes and a toothless maw, blasting her with its icy breath as it bellows wordless fury.
She scoots back across the glassy-smooth floor, feeling frantically for her pistol. Cal steps in front of her, his lightsaber held horizontally in both hands. Finally closing her fingers around her blaster, she scrambles to her feet.
"Should we make a run for it?" she whispers out of the corner of her mouth.
"On three," Cal whispers back. "One, two-"
Two blaster shots echo through the chamber, flashing scarlet off the ice as the bolts strike the beast in the chest, sending small puffs of smoke and snow. Cal's shoulders tense.
"Anna, why did you-"
"Three!" Anna pipes meekly, quickly lowering her smoking barrel.
The beast lets out its most enraged roar yet. Spines of ice jut out from every surface on its body, filling its mouth with rows upon rows of wicked teeth. All this she notices in the split second before she turns to sprint for the split in the temple wall with the footfalls of the beast following behind her like seismic charges. Reaching the crack, she shoves herself through as fast as she can manage, heedless of how the jagged stones tear at her cloak.
She bursts through to the other side just as the entire wall disintegrates around her. BD-1 screams from somewhere close by right before Cal comes flipping over her head, carving a trail through the snow as he tumbles to a halt on the mountainside. A quick glance over her shoulder confirms the beast has smashed through the solid-stone wall with the same ease as if it was made of paper. Fixing her eyes on Cal, she forces her screaming legs to pump faster.
"Cal, get up!"
Standing in front of his prone form, she turns and raises her blaster defiantly toward the beast.
"It is not nice to throw people!" she yells, firing another shot.
The bolt glances off a shard of ice protruding from the monster's shoulder. It doesn't even seem to notice. Beside her, Cal pushes himself to his knees, then to his feet with a pained grunt.
"You just… had to shoot the big snowman… huh?" he groans, pulling his lightsaber out of the air and igniting it with a twirl.
The creature lumbers toward them, rattling Anna's knees with each gargantuan step.
"It's getting closer!" she shouts.
"Get back to the ship," Cal hisses.
"Oh, don't you start this with me again."
Cal gives his blade another twirl and takes three firm strides forward, keeping his eyes on the beast.
"Fine, you can stay. Just stay back."
Then the monster is upon him. Cal bends backward, narrowly dodging a swipe from the beast's meter-long claws before throwing himself forward into a roll that brings him between its legs. The lightsaber hums, hissing as it severs several spines from the beast's back. With a bellow of rage, the creature spins and strikes at Cal with a backhand. Cal leaps backward, landing in a crouch just out of the beast's reach.
For a moment, Cal and the beast simply stare at each other. Cal begins to back up, holding his lightsaber up in a defensive stance. Abruptly, he turns and breaks into a sprint, the lightsaber blade extinguishing in his hand. The beast roars and takes pursuit, arms held out in front of it.
What is Cal doing? He's running straight for the edge of the crater!
Anna's heart thuds harder in her chest. Gritting her teeth, she directs another two shots at the back of the beast's head, but she might as well be throwing snowballs for all the effect they're having.
Right before he runs out of ground, Cal digs his feet in and skids to a halt. The monster bears down on him, arms carving inward in the galaxy's deadliest hug. At the last possible moment, Cal reignites his blade, throwing himself into a knee-slide with his back bent so far it's practically parallel to the ground. Green plasma drones through the air, carving clean through the beast's right leg at the thigh. The creature teeters for a moment, grunting in confusion as it stares down at its missing limb.
Scrambling to his feet behind the beast, Cal raises his arms and throws both hands toward the creature's back. The air between them shimmers, compressed by an invisible force as it blasts outward in a shockwave. The beast teeters off the lip of the crater with a panicked roar and tumbles out of sight in a cloud of snow.
Cal takes a long glance over the edge of the crater, slowly cliping his lightsaber back onto his belt. After exchanging a look with BD-1, he jogs back up to Anna.
"Can we go back now?"
"I like that plan," Anna answers dazedly.
A series of crashes and bellows continues to sound in the distance. With a final nervous glance over his shoulder, Cal takes off down the mountain at a brisk jog. This time, Anna has no trouble matching his pace.
This is the part where I massage the Frozen lore into the Star Wars universe. Also, Space!Marshmallow.