The Next Unknown

3 – Is Something Coming?

OoOoO

"Your Highness. We're ready."

"Oh!" The glowing images froze mid-dance and plummeted over the dock's railing. Elsa winced as ice splashed into the fjord she had just thawed. "Excuse me. I'm coming."

Despite the shadows under Mattias's eyes, his chuckle was warm. "Didn't mean to startle you, ma'am. Thirty-four years tiptoeing around sleeping Earth Giants—hard habit to break. Funny thing is, I grew up to my father yelling, 'Destin! This house can't take much more of you walking like a troll!'"

"Then perhaps you'll be glad to learn that trolls don't walk. They roll."

"Hey, that's a good one!" When Elsa's polite smile remained unchanged, Mattias peered sceptically at her. "… Are you telling me you've seen real trolls, Your Highness?"

She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug. "They pride themselves as 'love experts'. Though from what Anna tells me, General, you and Halima don't appear to need any help in that department."

Mattias turned scarlet. "I-I don't know if we should call it love—not that I don't, um, you know, but I don't know how I'm doing so far and it's inappropriate for me to presume that we're in some sort of… r-reciprocation without Halima's consent—"

Unable to hold her laughter in any longer, Elsa placed a hand on Mattias's forearm. "Forgive me; I'm only teasing you, General."

"Oh, thank—"

"Though I assure you, everything I said about the trolls is true."

"… Ah."

Elsa tilted her head towards the guards clustered further down the dock. "Shall we?"

"Of course, Your Highness." Mattias didn't seem to realise he had automatically offered Elsa his arm until she bemusedly raised an eyebrow. His flush returned in full force. "Sorry, too much time around Anna—Queen Anna, I mean… I'm just making it worse, aren't I?"

Anna would have happily put her arm through Mattias's and skipped along the dock. Elsa and their mother used to enter the study to find Anna straddling the king's shoulders while he completed his paperwork, giggling hysterically each time he leaned forward to dip his quill in the inkwell. Yet no matter how willing their father had been to entertain Anna behind closed doors, both girls had understood that in the public eye, he was King of Arendelle first and their Papa second. It meant that they were allowed to hold his gloved hand, but not too tightly in case he needed to greet someone. It meant going to Mama if their legs got tired, because if Papa carried them he was likely to get caught up in another lengthy discussion, and it was bad manners to drool on the king.

Elsa slipped her arm through the general's. At first, Mattias seemed frozen in shock. Then he positively beamed down at her. She returned it with a small, shy smile.

"Your magic is exquisite, by the way," he said as they began walking. "I don't know if I've told you that before."

"Thank you. I realise I haven't properly apologised for the way you first encountered my powers."

"My buttocks hold no grudge. Anna was the one recklessly swinging around that ice sword like she couldn't tell one end from the other. But let me tell you—the first time our gutsy queen gate-crashed a training session and showed us what she could do with a real sword?" Mattias chuckled. "I kid you not, I silently thanked your ice for tripping us that day. I would have underestimated her so badly she might have disarmed me and thought, 'Well, definitely not promoting this one to general when we get out of here!'"

Elsa wasn't at all surprised to hear praise for Anna's swordsmanship, but something else had her canting her head to one side. "'The first time'?"

Mattias blinked, then hastily backpedalled. "All the weapons are blunted, of course! And the boys know better than to knock down the queen… though really, we'd all feel a lot better if she'd let us put her in armour…"

"I'm not worried about her, General," Elsa assured. "I'm only happy to hear she's still able to find time for her hobbies. If anything, I'm concerned for your men. Anna grew up hitting dummies and sparring with the same three guards, since they were the only ones willing to teach her despite Father allowing it. I can only imagine her enthusiasm now that she has you at her disposal; she wouldn't like your men going easy on her."

Mattias coughed to one side and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "stomped on their feet."

A refreshing breeze swept over the fjord, rustling her hair and dress. Elsa tilted her head back and inhaled deeply. It was unexpectedly pleasant, allowing Mattias to guide her. When she was out with Anna, Elsa could hardly admire their surroundings since her vigilance was often the only thing preventing her sister from walking them straight into a flagpole.

When was the last time she had walked the streets by herself and simply enjoyed Arendelle?

"Missing the Forest?"

Wrenched back to reality, Elsa blinked at Mattias.

"I recognised it in your pretty light show earlier," he added quickly. "And honestly, even after spending half my life trying to get out of that place—I don't blame you. It sure didn't feel like it at the time, but learning to live alongside Yelana's people, separated from the outside world? Protected from terrible things like people jumping into the sea to get away from war in their own homes?" He shook his head. "It was actually a blessing in disguise."

They had reached the end of the boardwalk, where what was left of the six Southern Isles's boats had been towed up the slipway and lined up like unwanted seaweed scraped off the bottom of a fisherman's net.

"And yet the mist did a far better job than I have in protecting them," Elsa murmured.

Mattias followed her gaze to where Ryder stood, chatting to his reindeers as he unhooked them from the sleds that had been used to retrieve the boats. Ryder spotted them and waved energetically.

Waving back, Mattias leaned towards Elsa and whispered, "He has no idea what he just helped us with, does it?"

"No… he and Honeymaren just happened to arrive this morning to trade at the market. He saw me and Sven on our way down, and I didn't get to explain why we were getting the boats off the fjord before he started putting the harnesses back on his reindeers." Elsa sighed. "His help saved us a lot of time and labour but… I feel awful for getting him involved like this."

"He would have found out sooner or later, Your Highness. The entire village is talking about it. I can guarantee Honeymaren will have heard by now."

"I know. But Ryder is different."

Mattias grimaced. "Yeah. I know what you mean. The kid still can't get over the fact that he can look up anytime and see a clear sky above him."

"He sings songs about the stars. He made up his own names for the constellations after I pointed them out to him one night."

"That's cute. Does he talk to them, too?"

"Most nights."

"Does he, uh, hear them talk back to him?"

Elsa winced. "Yes."

"Oh, boy. Odin have mercy on us for dragging this innocent lamb into the land of wolves."

"This is my fault. I should have…"

"What should we not have done, Your Highness?" Mattias questioned solemnly. "Not freed the Forest? Not welcomed them into Arendelle and introduced them to our people? Should we have told Ryder and Honeymaren, who grew up without knowing the moon's smile, to stay away from this world they're so curious to discover, because there's a chance it'll break them before it welcomes them?"

"What we should never have done," Elsa said quietly, "was attack them."

There was a pause as their eyes met.

Mattias nodded in weary agreement. "Aye." He nodded again, this time towards the broken boats. "And nineteen people should never have died trying to flee their own homes. Yet there are forty others who are not only alive, but fed, clothed, and eating breakfast in a castle. Meanwhile, Ryder, a Northuldra, lent his reindeers to Arendellian soldiers without asking questions, and everything handmade in his sister's stall sells out before lunchtime. It was my generation that put Arendelle on the wrong side of history, Princess Elsa. But yours is the one rewriting the future."

With that, Mattias winked at her, stepped away from her towards his men, and boomed out, "Form up, boys! Let's see what we've found."

Elsa watched the guards salute Mattias and thought to herself that he was wrong: Anna would have promoted him to general no matter what had happened in the Forest.

If not for Mattias, they might not have found the refugees' boats. After everyone had been settled in the Great Hall, he had led volunteers back onto the fjord to retrieve the rescue boats so they would not be left stranded when the ice receded. Then he'd taken Sven and ridden further out to ensure that no one had been left behind. And it was out there, at the point of turning back, that they had come across the Southern Isles boats. They, too, had been dredged up by Elsa's ice, but were too far and fragile to be retrieved in the dark without returning with more men and sleds.

It wasn't until that morning, when she had stood on the dock watching Sven and Ryder's reindeers grow smaller and smaller in the distance, that Elsa had comprehended just how far the refugees had swum in the icy waters. Yet some part of her still clung to the hope that the night's events had been a dream. The screaming and crying. The sight of shivering people ripping free of warm blankets to throw themselves over the bodies of those too far gone to feel the cold. Her sister clutching her, sinking to her knees as she sobbed uncontrollably.

But then there was the silence only Elsa could hear, reminding her that the night had been very, very real. Reminding her of what she had done.

You're human.

Something bumped into her back, making her stagger forward.

Elsa looked over her shoulder, already smiling. "Sven. Thank you for your hard work."

He sniffed her face, drawing out soft laughter. "Yes, of course I had Gerda set aside the juiciest-looking carrots for you."

Sven brayed his approval and pushed his head under her hand. Elsa scratched his ears, the tension draining from her shoulders.

"I see a reindeer whisperer in the making."

Elsa looked up to see Ryder winding a rope around one arm as he approached. "Thank you as well, Ryder. Sven would have had to make a lot more trips otherwise. We'll make sure your reindeer are rested and fed at the stables."

"Don't mention it; they love a good run. Just maybe check there aren't any random boats stuck out there next time you freeze the whole fjord, eh?"

"Ryder, about that—"

"Ooh, before I forget—are you planning to come back soon? Honeymaren and I are staying overnight and heading back tomorrow morning if you want to join us."

"I… thank you for thinking of me. But I can't leave right now. There are a lot of—things happening in Arendelle."

Ryder draped the coiled rope on Sven's antlers and leaned against the reindeer. "Oh, cool. Like a festival? I love festivals!"

"Actually—"

"Look, it's Queen Elsa!" an excited voice called from above.

"Shh! We're supposed to call her 'Princess Elsa' now."

"So? She's still the Snow Queen!"

Two children skipped down the stone steps and ran across the dock towards Elsa. She fumbled desperately for their names right up until they skidded to a panting halt in front of her, flashing identical gap-toothed grins. "Arn and Sara? My goodness, you've both grown so much. I almost didn't recognise you."

"We recognised you real easy," boasted Arn, only to be cuffed by his older sister.

"It's 'really easily', you goof!"

Ignoring Sara, Arn grinned up at Elsa. "Can we pretty please go ice-skating on the fjord? We didn't get to skate at all this winter."

"I'm afraid not. I've just thawed the ice since General Mattias and his men have finished working on it."

"Aww, can't you just freeze it again? Pa said the fjord's ice wasn't strong enough to skate on because those big trading ships keep cutting through it, and now it's all melted away, and if you're not here, we'll have to wait until next year. Pa says only your ice is safe."

"Her ice isn't just the safest, silly—it's the strongest. Remember how she saved Arendelle from that big flood? And how she saved everyone last night, too?"

The dull twinge at the base of Elsa's skull reignited mercilessly. Four fitful hours of sleep with Anna and Kristoff snoring in tandem had not equipped her for this type of conversation.

Gathering her dress around her, Elsa crouched down to Arn's level and took Sara's hand. "Not everyone," she corrected gently. "That's why we can't skate on the fjord today. We must pay our respects to those who lost their lives in the water."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ryder look at the broken boats, then back at her.

"But," Elsa went on, squeezing the children's hands, "many people are okay. They're safe and warm. Do you know why?"

"Ma said your ice saved them from drowning."

Elsa shook her head. "Do you know what Queen Anna and Prince Kristoff did when they realised someone was in trouble? They jumped into the water themselves. They didn't hesitate to be brave, and everyone responded to that. Courageous Arendellians like your father rowed out to help people out of the water long before I arrived. Your mother gave them blankets, clothes, and food. It wasn't me who saved those people; it was all of Arendelle. Everyone helped."

She took Arn by the shoulders and turned him around. "Just like how my friend, Ryder, helped General Mattias get these boats off the fjord. Why don't we thank him for letting us borrow his reindeer?"

You're welcome, Ryder mouthed to her. She only had time to return a grateful smile before Arn was on top of him, shouting that he was awesome and strong but probably not strong enough to beat Kristoff, and could he pretty please get a ride on Mr. Sven?

"Only if you ask nicely and don't pull my antlers. Also, I could ab-so-lute-ly beat Kristoff in an arm wrestle. I'll show you!"

Sara bit her lip as she watched Ryder toss her giggling brother over one shoulder. Then she turned to Elsa and blurted, "Pa says you like being in the Enchanted Forest more than Arendelle. Is that true?"

She heard Mattias and Ryder asking if she missed the Forest, and when she would return. She heard Anna wondering with forced nonchalance how long she would stay in Arendelle.

What she still couldn't hear were the other spirits.

"Your Highness?" Mattias called. "Can you please come and look at this?"

Her head throbbed.

"Give me a minute, please," Elsa called back. Then she smiled at Sara. "Both Arendelle and the Forest are home to me. I couldn't choose between them, sweetheart."

"But what if you had to?"

"Hey, Sara! Look at me!" Ryder had taught Arn how to lounge backwards on Sven without falling off.

Sara's face lit up, and she looked pleadingly at Elsa, all else forgotten. "Go on," Elsa encouraged, rising to her feet. Fearing that she would only see the ground splitting beneath her if she looked down.

"Every time we're out in town," Mattias chuckled when Elsa reached him, "there will always be at least one kid asking Anna if she can make them a toy. So she's always got a stash of paper somewhere, ready to fold them an animal instead. She's not letting you outshine her."

"Anna is very talented at papercraft," she agreed. "Have you discovered something about the boats?"

With that, Mattias's humour evaporated. "Well. The good news is we have a rough idea of how the refugees all ended up overboard at the same time. I'm sure Your Highness knows that the fjord freezes naturally every winter. Most of the ice melted last week, but there are still sheets of it floating in the water. My guess is that they rowed as far as they could until it became impossible to get past what was left."

"Then they tried to cross the ice floes on foot," Elsa murmured, horrified by the desperation that must have driven sixty people to brave the treacherous waters instead of waiting for the ice to melt further. How many had slipped and become trapped underneath? "So we may have found the boats regardless of my ice."

"No, they still sank." Mattias looked like he was nursing a migraine of his own. "It might be easier to show you, ma'am. If you'll follow me."

The men parted for them, bowing to Elsa. She nodded back. Then she was standing in front of a boat bearing the Southern Isles's emblem on its bow.

"Any thoughts?"

The first thing she noticed was that it listed to one side. Arendellian fishing boats sat flat on the ground thanks to their broad, flat-bottomed hulls designed for skimming shallow waters. The Southern Isles's boat, however, had a deep, wedge-shaped hull indicating it had been built to weather choppy, open water. This was hardly unusual, since the Isles did sit in the middle of the sea, but Elsa's narrowed gaze continued roving over the vessel, trying to pinpoint why it unsettled her so much.

"The shape. It's too narrow for a fishing boat."

Mattias nodded. "Not a lot of room for equipment; I reckon hauling up a full net would capsize the whole thing. No fisherman worth his salt would try to make a living in this toothpick of a boat." He glanced sideways at Elsa. "But we do have Arendellian boats similar to this. In the navy."

Elsa frowned. "Scout boats. Built for speed and stealth."

"Very good, Your Highness. These boats look like they came from the Southern Isles's fleet. Of course, I'm not saying these poor folk are spies; they would have done a better job planning their survival if that was the case. You only have to look at them—there are more women and elderly than able-bodied men."

"They could be civilians simply jumping into whatever was available."

"Exactly. But that's not even the million kronor question. Or the bad news." Mattias rounded to the other side and pointed at the wedged-shaped hull. "See this? All the other boats are in the same condition."

Four gaping holes very clearly allowed Elsa to see the boardwalk underneath.

"Damage like this should have sunk them long before they reached Arendelle. So how did they…"

Mattias cleared his throat. "In training, we were taught to scuttle a boat so it would sink whole, leaving nothing for the enemy to find. It—well, it looks a lot like this."

Hakon Erling's words resounded in her head: Perhaps that is just what they wanted us to think.

Had they refused to hear the reason behind that soulless statement?

"But why would they need to do that? They were practically at our doorstep and we are not their enemy. If they distrusted us so badly, why did they come here at all?"

"I don't think it was us they were trying to hide from, ma'am." Mattias motioned for her to look more closely at the boats.

At first, she didn't know what she was looking at—the only abnormalities that caught her eye were the numerous thin, wooden rods protruding from the top and sides of each boat, the ends frayed like they had been snapped off. Then she saw a flash of steel buried in wood.

Arrowheads.

Elsa's wide-eyed gaze snapped across the deceivingly tranquil fjord as it hit her like a tidal wave.

"They were being chased."

OoOoO

"Oi."

The weirdest part was that he'd only been down there once, and yet somehow the route was already ingrained in his memory. Just another of a hundred things he wished he could forget about last night.

"Hey, you."

He probably shouldn't have swiped three sandwiches. He was famished, yes, but so were the refugees; the maids were running marathons between the kitchen and Great Hall, struggling to put out enough food for forty people who seemed desperate to eat back every meal they'd missed over five days at sea. And he really shouldn't be giving his stomach an excuse to churn. Not that he expected to hurl. He'd already seen the worst of it, and of course he trusted Elsa's ice to—

"Hey! Big guy with the funny shoes and bad hearing—are you ignoring me or what?"

Kristoff stopped walking and blinked down at his shoes. Then he looked over his shoulder. "Are you talking to me?"

There was a skinny boy doubled over behind him, hands planted on his knees as he panted like he had been running. He scowled at Kristoff. "Don't see anyone else with shoes like a boat."

"At least I have shoes."

The boy blinked.

Kristoff slapped a hand to his face. "Ah, shit—I mean damn—I mean… argh. I'm sorry, I don't know what got into me. Please don't cry."

He'd thought the same old taunts couldn't get to him by now. Too scrawny then suddenly too large and intimidating. His nose was too big. He smelled like a reindeer, because he didn't have any 'proper' friends. He didn't know how to talk to people. He wasn't royal enough. And now even a kid from across the sea thought his shoes looked like boats.

A barefoot little boy who, wearing a shirt three sizes too big and trousers that needed to be belted to his skinny waist, did not deserve to be reminded of why he didn't have clothes that fit him. Or shoes. No matter how badly Kristoff had slept.

Then he heard an incredulous snort. "What is there to cry about? You're as weird as your shoes, mister."

Okay. The boy was not crying. In fact, he didn't even look upset. He was so young—what, eight years old? Nine? Did he even understand what was happening?

But then the boy raised his head and Kristoff saw the unmistakeable mark of age in his dark eyes. He understood everything, alright.

Kristoff scrubbed his hands over his face. "Okay. How about we try this again? I'm walking down this corridor, and you say…"

"Oi."

"… Right. So I turn around and say: 'Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking to me. What do you need?'" He pointed at the boy. "And now that's your cue to say…"

"Show me around." A pause. Then an impatient sigh. "Please. I'm bored."

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. He had spent the morning helping forty people deal with their shock and grief in forty different ways. He'd comforted and listened and played requests on his lute. He had even spent fifteen minutes teaching a woman how to make his traditional Flemmy Stew, which she'd requested pen and paper to write down. Then she'd turned the page and copied it out again. And again.

Others had stared vacantly and silently into space for hours. Or talked non-stop for hours, which was why, after much discussion, they had eventually caved and bought in Olaf. Kristoff still wasn't sure that Olaf fully comprehended the tragedy of what had happened, but his chipper presence and sleepless companionship seemed enough to convince the refugees that a talking snowman was a sensible counsellor.

No one had raised the issue of boredom. Then again, there didn't seem to be many children who needed entertaining… because the only other children Kristoff had seen were all lying on Elsa's ice.

"Can I ask you something, kid?"

"What?"

"Did you… are you here with anyone? Your parents?"

"No." The boy crossed his arms as if daring Kristoff to pry further.

Kristoff couldn't solve the problems that required Anna's or Elsa's attention. He still didn't know all the councillors' names and faces, and could walk halfway across town before computing that 'Your Highness' meant him. But he could distribute bedrolls. He knew how to safely raise someone's body temperature. He could make sure all the refugees got a turn in the shower and had their scrapes and bruises treated. And he knew what it was like to have no one.

Kristoff ripped his last sandwich in two and handed one half to the boy, who accepted it like it would explode. "I'm Kristoff. What about you, kid?"

The boy sniffed the sandwich and made a face. He took a bite anyway. "Oskar," he said around the mouthful. "And stop calling me a kid. I'm almost thirteen."

Kristoff stopped walking and spun around. "You," he said incredulously, "are twelve years old?"

"I said, almost thirteen."

"That means you're twelve."

"I know my own age," Oskar scowled. "My growth spurt is coming, okay?"

"I'm not saying there's a problem with being—" Oskar's glare shot holes in Kristoff's chosen vocabulary. "—wiry. It's just… maybe I should have given you the whole sandwich."

Still scowling, Oskar very pointedly shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth. At least the kid had spirit.

Slowing his pace so Oskar wouldn't have to jog to keep up with him, Kristoff pointed at a staircase. "We're close to the library. Do you want to go in and have a look?"

"No."

"What do you want to see, then?"

"Where's the queen?"

"Good question. Everywhere." Kristoff hadn't seen Anna since breakfast, when he'd told her to tackle her hectic day without worrying about the refugees because he had it covered. She'd stood up as soon as Elsa and Sven left for the docks, and kissed him long and slow and murmured, Thank you for being incredible. Which wasn't fair, because she'd stolen both the words and his breath from his lips.

"I want to see a reindeer. You have one in the castle, don't you?"

Kristoff glanced down in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"I listen when people talk. Unlike you."

And now he wanted to thump the kid again. Kristoff reminded himself that apathetic rudeness might just be Oskar's way of coping with trauma. But you're not allowed to hit him even if it's not, Anna's voice lectured in his head.

"His name is Sven, and you'll have to meet him another day. He's out with Elsa right now."

"Who's Elsa?"

"The queen's sister."

"Oh. The ice witch."

"Don't call her that." Kristoff's growl startled Oskar enough to stop him in his tracks. "What Elsa has is magic, which she used to help you last night. So before you call her anything at all, how about thanking her first?"

Oskar shifted under Kristoff's glare. "That's just what we call her in the Southern Isles," he muttered.

"Well, you're in Arendelle. And you don't want to know what we call your Prince Hans up here."

"You know him?"

"I saw him once, and that was when my wife punched him overboard."

"Didn't Princess Anna do that? As in, the Princess Anna who's now queen? Wait. You're married to the queen of Arendelle?"

Kristoff crossed his arms smugly, hardly offended. "Will that make you think twice before oi-ing me again?"

Oskar continued gawking at Kristoff like he belonged under a massive microscope.

"You're going to trip," Kristoff pointed out casually, just as Oskar stumbled. Anna-honed reflexes snatched up the back of the boy's shirt before he could fall. "Told you."

Oskar's shirt was so oversized that Kristoff's catch had practically pulled it over his head, and his muffled response was lost in fabric. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of barbarian?"

Kristoff yanked Oskar's shirt back down. "Ice. Harvester."

"Is it true that you kill wolves with your bare hands and eat their hearts?"

"No! What on earth do they teach you on the Southern Isles? Actually, don't tell me." After hearing what they had to say about him and Elsa, Kristoff couldn't risk finding out what they thought of Anna. It wasn't a good time to break a hand on a wall.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"How about you give me an idea of where you want to go?"

For the first time, Oskar was completely silent.

Kristoff dropped the whimsical tone. "Alright. What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Anna would definitely let you sit on the throne if that's what you're wondering."

"It's not."

Kristoff put a hand on Oskar's mop of dark hair. Surprisingly, the boy didn't duck away. "Hey. I'm not going to laugh at you. I didn't know where to start when it was my first time in a castle. Sven's stable was already bigger and nicer than anything I'd ever lived in. And don't get me started on the linen closet—"

"The dungeon." Oskar continued staring down at the floor, but his voice was clear. "You told the guards that's where you were going."

Regretting every snappish reply, Kristoff crouched down. "That's why you snuck out and followed me?"

Oskar turned his head away. "I didn't sneak. No one said we couldn't go anywhere. Are we your prisoners?"

"What? Of course not." Yet Kristoff's first thought had been, How did this kid get past the guards? Oskar's restlessness made sense now. "Oskar. Do you know who we're keeping in the dungeons?"

"I know what is in the dungeons."

"Come on, bud. I know it's hard, but there's no need to act tough. If you didn't still think of them as people, you wouldn't be asking to go down to see them."

"If they were still people, you wouldn't be going down there every few hours to check if they're starting to smell," Oskar shot back. Then his entire body stiffened, and he jerked away.

Kristoff didn't know what to do with this belligerent stick of a kid who acted like a prickly rose bush when the only thorn he truly had was stuck fast into his young heart. All he knew was that Anna would have hugged him.

So Kristoff lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the floor, and waited.

Neither of them moved.

Finally, Oskar's murky eyes flickered up. They were dry, yet Kristoff saw a universe of pain swimming within them.

"Did you know someone in the dungeon?"

A small nod.

"Family?"

A shake of a head.

"Friend?"

Hesitation. "My sister."

"Then that's fam… oh." Kristoff licked his lips. "I was adopted, too. So I know what it's like to choose your own family. What's important is that you care about your sister. And she cared about you, right?"

"She shouldn't have." It came out as a whisper. "If she'd cared less, she would still be alive."

What could he say to that?

But Kristoff remembered something Grand Pabbie had told him a long time ago, when he had asked why the trolls would want to keep someone like him.

"Sometimes we get to choose the ones we love, and sometimes we don't. But we never get to choose by whom we are loved."

"I don't know what that means."

Kristoff smiled faintly. "You will one day. After you hit your growth spurt."

"Shut up."

"Hey, don't forget I'm the queen's husband."

"Don't forget that makes you a prince consort. Not a king."

"How do you know that?"

"I told you: I listen." Oskar wiped his nose on the back of his arm. Kristoff plucked out his handkerchief and flicked it at him. Oskar blew so loudly into it that his voice, when he spoke again, sounded particularly small in contrast. "Do they?"

"Hmm?"

"… smell?"

"No, kid. We're taking good care of them. But it is cold down there. What do you say we find you some shoes before we visit your sister?"

"Normal shoes, right?"

"Watch it, brat."

It came and went like a skittish mouse diving between gutters, but Kristoff saw it.

A smile.

OoOoO

"Hi, Gerda! Have you seen Kristoff?"

"I believe His Highness is…" Gerda looked like she wanted to drop the pitcher and take Anna's face in her hands. "Pardon me, Your Majesty, but have you seen the bags beneath your eyes? Did you not sleep well?"

"Oh, totally—totally well, I mean. Just not totally long." Anna took the pitcher from Gerda and poured a glass of orange juice, which she handed with a smile to a fuzzy-haired man staring up at her from his bedroll. "Here you go, sir. That'll give the scurvy a good knock. Anyway, Gerda, I know for a fact that you and Kai got, like, six minutes of rest. I don't understand how it doesn't, you know, show on your face."

"I am a maid accustomed to the demands of my work, ma'am. You are a queen—"

"Who also has a lot of work to do. Please stop worrying about me, Gerda. You've seen Elsa's sleep hours; next to her, I'm practically the patron saint of comatose. Hi there! Good morning—oh gosh, it's afternoon already. Would you like a drink? There's juice, tea, coffee, hot cocoa… hmm. Gerda? We do have hot cocoa, right?"

"Of course, Your Majesty." Gerda followed with the trolley, pouring hot milk and cocoa powder into a mug. She placed a teaspoon on the saucer and passed it into Anna's waiting hands, all the while making it quite clear that she thought Anna ought to be tucked into bed. "To answer your previous question, ma'am, Prince Kristoff is making another round to check on the… ice."

All of Anna's focus went into not spilling the hot beverage. She hadn't been down to the dungeons yet. Kristoff had made her promise not to, and he'd made it sound like a matter of trusting him to keep an eye on things—which she did, obviously—but it was plain as day that he thought it would upset her. Which it would. But still. She didn't like the thought of him bearing that weight alone. She'd dodged an agricultural report from Councillor Fisker ("The harvest is poor this season; if more refugees are drawn to Arendelle, we may face a grain shortage!") hoping to catch up with him. She wasn't sure where Elsa was, either, but she'd heard that the fjord had been thawed. Knowing Elsa, she'd already hunted down something else to do.

"His Highness has been very helpful," Gerda added. "He's earned their trust."

"Of course he has," Anna said fondly. She turned to the next person. "Hello! What can I get for you?"

The woman reached up to clutch Anna's hand. "You're the queen," she said hoarsely.

"I'm Anna." Patting the woman's hand, Anna shot a discreet but firm look at the nearest guard, who had started forward at the contact. He returned reluctantly to his post. "Did you rest well? I know how uncomfortable it is sleeping on the floor—I did it, too, but I kind of cheated by using my sister and husband as cushions. I hope the food has been to your taste; I asked the cooks to try some southern recipes but, well, sometimes their experimentations literally go south if know what I mean—"

Suddenly, there were so many people around her that Anna lost sight of Gerda. A circle formed around her, yet there was no shouting, no fervent pulling at her clothes and hair. Anna stared at a congregation of unfamiliar faces, taking in their haggardness but seeing far more clearly the synchronous movement of their lips as they all murmured the same thing.

Thank you.

Certain things were expected of a queen, but there was also a far longer list of things she was not supposed to do. Like listening to her subjects' petitions over tea and biscuits instead of from her throne on the dais. Like sneaking out of the castle for a date night. Like kicking off her shoes and swimming towards the sound of screaming.

Like holding back tears in front of people from a kingdom threatening war with hers, and whispering, "I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

OoOoO

It took a while for her to notice the hush that fell over the Great Hall.

"So, Emil, your job was making crossbows. That's incredible. That means you're a… sorry, what's the word again?"

"Atilliator, Your Majesty."

"Right—and how do you spell that?"

"With two Ls," a new voice answered.

Anna looked up so quickly she nearly knocked over the inkwell. "Elsa! You found me."

Her sister smiled down at her, bright as sunshine. She knelt down and rubbed a cool thumb across Anna's cheek. "You have ink on your face."

"And probably on my dress, too. I keep poking holes through the parchment." Anna waved the list she was working on. "I'm making a list of everyone's names and the jobs they had back home. It might help us find something for them to do while they're here… is something wrong?"

Elsa lowered her voice. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay. Wait—" Anna put down the quill and paper, and pressed a hand to Elsa's forehead. "Do you have another headache?"

She felt that little crease in Elsa's brow momentarily smooth out with amusement. "I didn't realise you could detect it like a fever."

"Yeah, well, you do have a bad habit of not telling me about those, either, and I don't want you falling off the clock tower again."

"That was one time—"

"Too many."

Elsa made a face at her. Anna mimicked it. Her sister's smile returned. "I don't have a fever, Anna."

"But you do have a headache?"

"It's much better than before. I'll be fine."

Anna narrowed her eyes. The thing was, Elsa always looked fine. Perfect. But Anna also knew that her sister sang in the bath, woke up with bed hair just like hers, and couldn't play charades to save her life yet could unceremoniously stack a house of playing cards without using magic.

Anna picked up the lukewarm tea by her side and pushed it into Elsa's hands. "We ran out of sugar cubes before I could make it the way I like it, so this should taste just right for you."

She watched with satisfaction as Elsa's shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. "Thank you."

"Are the other spirits still mad at you? Can you tell?"

There was a pause as Elsa took a sip of tea in that enviously composed manner of hers. When she did it, it looked strategic; when Anna did it, she just looked thirsty. "Yes, and yes. I'd hoped the Nokk would respond after I unfroze the fjord… but it didn't."

"Have you tried talking to Honeymaren and Ryder? I saw them in the market today. But I guess they'd just tell you to go to Yelana, huh? You know what? You should go back and figure this out, Elsa. I've got everything under control here."

"Anna, it's fine—"

"No, it's not! It's important!"

"Yes, but we have a bigger problem. We need to—" Elsa broke off.

Puzzled, Anna looked up.

The refugees had formed another circle around them. But this time, they were all staring at Elsa.

Anna's head snapped back. She saw Elsa's wide eyes and the doors closing within them; the way she drew her hands to her chest, no doubt thinking of another time she had frozen the fjord in front of another crowd—

Anna shot to her feet—this time, she really did knock over the inkwell. But she didn't look down. She reached behind her, and when she felt Elsa take her hand, she yanked her sister up beside her.

"Anna," Elsa gasped, stumbling into her. "What are you—"

"Everyone, this is Elsa. My sister. She's…" God, how could she summarise her magical sister, the fifth spirit and former queen, creator of snowmen and houses of cards alike? "She's just Elsa," Anna announced resolutely.

Biting her lip, Elsa gazed out at the refugees. Then she dipped her head and said, softly, "I'm very sorry for your losses."

There was a long silence.

Emil the atilliator stepped forward. "Your Majesty, Your Highness. Please… stop apologising for the problems caused by our own kingdom. None of us would be here without you." He glanced hesitantly at Elsa. "Both of you."

Anna remembered the morning after summer had been restored, when she'd bounced into Elsa's room stoked for the queen's first public address—only to find her sister huddled on the floor, her dress pooled around her as she anxiously watched snow fall from the ceiling. What if they hate me, Anna?

Now, Anna squeezed Elsa's hand and leaned in to whisper, "Was this the 'big problem' you were talking about?"

Elsa's troubled expression returned.

"That's a no," Anna sighed.

Elsa regarded her. Then the refugees. And appeared to decide. "Actually," she said, "I'd like to speak to everyone."

She cast Anna a look that seemed to ask May I? Which Anna didn't understand why she kept doing in front of other people, because, sure, Anna was the queen now but Elsa was still her big sister and it wasn't like no existed between them.

But when Elsa turned back to face the refugees, she wasn't just Elsa anymore. Queen or not, there was no mistake about the gravity of what she planned to say next. "This morning, we retrieved your boats from the fjord."

Anna's eyebrows shot up. That was it? She already knew that.

And yet there was another shift in the air. The refugees shuffled on the spot and glanced at each other.

Elsa pursed her lips. "Your reactions tell me you were hoping we wouldn't find them. Does that mean you were the ones who purposefully sank them?"

Anna wasn't sure she'd heard properly. "Wait, what?"

Elsa gave her an apologetic look and opened her mouth to explain. But one woman answered, "Yes, Your Highness. We did."

"Ragna!" her neighbour hissed.

Ragna the cook, Anna recalled from her list.

"We owe them the truth, Osmund." Osmund the blacksmith. "The queen and princess have shown us nothing but kindness."

"I know that—but what truth is there left to tell?"

Multiple voices rose. The guards at the corners of the room snapped to attention.

"Whoa, what's going on here?" came a familiar voice from the back of the crowd.

Anna could no longer count on one hand the number of times she'd wanted to cry in relief at the sight of that sweet, rugged face. "Kristoff!"

The hall immediately quietened as the refugees settled down, their heads downcast like children caught squabbling in front of a parent. Anna and Elsa shared a perplexed look—it seemed Kristoff had worked his own kind of magic on them.

And now he was looking questioningly at Anna, like he hoped she also had a trick to pull from her sleeve.

Her mind spun. "Okay, let's just… talk this through. I don't understand; why did you get rid of the boats when you were so close to Arendelle? The water was… it's dangerous."

"The boats were blocked by floating ice," Emil said. "It would have taken days for the ice to melt enough for us to pass. Swimming was inevitable."

"But you didn't have to sink the boats. That would have taken time. Energy. Why didn't you just leave them there?"

No one answered. Not even Emil or Ragna.

"Anna," Elsa said quietly. "We found arrows stuck into all the boats."

"Arrows?"

"Oh. That explains…" Kristoff grimaced as he met Anna's disoriented gaze. "Last night, in the dungeons, I noticed not everyone looked like they'd… drowned. I couldn't be sure because the water had washed away most of the blood, but…"

"They were attacked." Anna held onto Elsa's arm as she looked at the refugees in horror. "You were attacked."

"The king ordered archers to shoot any unauthorised boats leaving the Isles," murmured Ragna.

"We're so sorry," Elsa said. "I hope you'll forgive my insensitivity, but please, we need more answers. You wouldn't have gone to the effort of sinking the boats if you hadn't believed there was someone on your trail. Someone to hide from. We need to know if there are any ships, King Caleb's or otherwise, that could track you here. To Arendelle."

To Arendelle.

It hit Anna then, exactly how naïve she'd been. She had gotten this far by telling herself that the next right thing could only truly be the next right thing if it was the best for everyone. But she saw now that it was nothing more than a child's fantasy written in snow, destined to be buried. Sometimes there was not enough room for everyone on a single life raft. Just like the balance between nature and humans, there was a balance to everything else. Except there was no bridge between humans. Where there was give, there would be take.

Caleb was hellbent on taking. But Anna was the one who had done too much unconditional giving.

Letting go of Elsa's hand, Anna stepped forward. She didn't look at her sister or her husband; she only had eyes for the people from the Southern Isles, who stared uneasily back at her. "Are you worried that we will make you leave? It would make sense, wouldn't it? If you're actually fugitives, then sheltering you will only come back to bite us. That's why you destroyed the boats, even though it wouldn't take much for trackers to figure out you had come to Arendelle. You hoped they would think you had all drowned—or, if they came here, you hoped we would protect you. You knew the danger you were bringing to our shores, and you chose to come anyway."

They all bowed their heads.

"Except you didn't get to choose when your kingdom went to war with itself. I chose to help you. When I learned you had come from the Southern Isles, I chose to open our gates to you anyway." Anna took a breath and squared her shoulders. "And I don't know how to explain it, but no matter what happens, or who comes looking for you, I don't think I'll ever regret saving you. I can't blame you for that, because you didn't have a choice. But I did, and if I made the wrong one—if my mistake endangered my kingdom—then I hope you'll choose to help me fix it."

Anna reached out and took Ragna's hand. She looked at Emil. "Please," she implored, "don't be afraid. Just be honest. Tell me: is something coming?"

For a long while, no one seemed to breathe.

Then Ragna swallowed. "Queen Anna, the truth is—"

"Caleb sent two ships after us."

Every head turned towards the new voice. It came from Kristoff's direction, but he was also staring down in astonishment. Murmurs travelled through the crowd, and the refugees parted to reveal a young boy.

"Oh," Anna breathed.

He was no longer drenched and shivering. Gone was the ragged tunic, replaced by a bright Arendellian outfit that, unlike the other refugees' clothes, actually seemed to fit him. His boots gave his footsteps weight as he strode forth. As he came closer, Anna saw that beneath the bedraggled dark hair, his eyes were no longer glassy and vacant. Far from it.

"Hello again," she said.

"Two ships," the boy repeated in his peculiarly serious tone.

She resisted the urge to crouch down for him. "Are you sure? Even if Caleb didn't want anyone to leave, that's a lot of firepower to send after a group of civilians in the middle of a coup."

He shrugged. "We're not all civilians."

Anna blinked. Then she turned around and snatched up the list she had left on the floor, scanning her scrawled handwriting. The words leapt out at her—how had she missed it?

"Elsa?"

"Yes?"

"Atilliator, blacksmith, cook, porter, falconer, constable, steward. Doesn't that sound like…"

"Household staff positions," Elsa murmured, "for a highly militarised noble family."

They both looked up at the boy. He didn't seem daunted.

"What happened to those two ships?" Elsa questioned. "You couldn't have outrun them."

"We got a head start, and they didn't use the cannons. Caleb still wanted to get us back alive, but he took too long. My father's fleet ambushed his so we could get away."

"Your father's fleet?" Elsa repeated.

Anna gazed at the boy standing in front of her. He was smaller than she'd initially thought, and it was still strange to hear so many words coming out of his lips, which were no longer purple with cold. But all she had to do was close her eyes, and she'd be back in the icy water with him, his thin arm wrapped around her neck as she told him, We'll do it together. Okay?

For the second time, she asked him, "What's your name?"

And this time, the boy replied, "Oskar Westergaard."

A/N: I wish I could spend another 8000 words thanking you for reading these incurably long chapters and leaving such lovely reviews!

Arn and Sara are side characters from the Disney Frozen comic 'The Hero Within'. My headcanon of Elsa having time to dabble in impractical skills like building a house of cards comes from chapter 12 of The Sky Is Awake.