Long time. Had to write this chapter multiple times to fit in the ideas I had. Writing these kinds of stories is like playing chess with yourself. You figure out what's the best move for the opposite side and then you play yours without bias.

Hope you like it and review.

Enjoy ;)

"Y...How did you...but they...what?" Rapunzel was immensely confused and was having a similar reaction as that of the lead of the palace staff.

Anna, completely alert this time heard approaching feet from a distance. Undoubtedly one of the staff who had been attracted to the smashing sound of glass. She realised that no one of the staff except Kai, Gerda and Olina knew about her parents' return. She cursed herself in her mind and whirled around.

She was just going to warn them and lead off the small lost group but Elsa and Kristoff were much faster.

Elsa grabbed Rapunzel and Cassandra and pulled them toward the conference chambers which was just a few doors away from their current position. Kristoff flung Eugene not so gently towards the same door. Agnarr and Iduna pulled a frozen Anna and Sven picked Olaf up with his antlers and led him off to follow Elsa with Alex behind them.

They made it in the conference chambers just in time as a maid came into view. Alex quickly closed the door before she could notice anything. Everyone looked at him tensed. It also included a surprised duo.

He peeked through the door and gave a sign that they were safe.

"Oh thank god!" Agnarr was relieved.

"Agnarr?" A deep voice called out to him from behind. The same voice he had been deprived of for thirty five years.

He slowly turned to face his best friend. He hadn't changed a bit. All he could notice, was some aged strands in his beard and soldier cut hair. Apart from that, his physique, his fierce but friendly loving gaze, his crooked smile, his voice, all remained the same.

Mattias came forward to shake his hand, but was slammed in his chest by a full fledged running embrace by his bestie.

For a moment, Agnarr felt like he was back on the training grounds trying to tackle down a laughing Mattias as he taught him swordfight. "I've missed you man." was all he could manage.

Mattias who had been surprised by the gesture, snapped out of it and patted his back. "I missed you to buddy."

Meanwhile, Iduna turned to face a short, old woman nearing her seventies. She was no doubt one of the elders of the Northuldra now. Her wrinkled face was the only indication of her ageing. She smiled at Iduna and opened her arms. She was more than just a best friend for Iduna. Iduna hugged her tight, never to leave her again. It had been thirty five years since the mist fell, and they all had been locked out. Not anymore. Thanks to her daughters and Kristoff, Alex, Sven and Olaf. How could she possiblity return the favour?

Eugene wasn't anywhere near sure as to what was happening here. The world had gone all crazy around him. 'They were dead. But now they're alive. Did everyone except them know about this? Why had they ran from a castle maid who was pretty much harmless? How did the former king and queen know these two; a lieutenant and a Northuldra leader? What the hell had they missed? Everytime, they came to something special in Arendelle, something went wrong. Last time, it was Elsa's coronation, this time it's Anna and Kristoff's wedding.' He thought. He looked at his fiancé who looked just as uncertain about what to do as he was. As a last resort, he looked at Cassandra who just shrugged. 'Yeah! like Cass was gonna know what to do in this situation!' Eugene mentally slapped himself. He saw Cassandra step forward and before he could stop her she asked the question.

"What's happening here?"

He gave her a look of 'Yeah! very subtle Cass!'

She gave a look back that said ' You had a better idea?'

Actually he had a better idea. To NOT do what Cass had just done. He face palmed himself in his mind.

The two hugging pairs of people broke apart.

Anna looked back at them apologetically. "Okay, so you already know mother and father..." She turned to Agnarr and Iduna "...this is Rapunzel, Eugene, her husband, and this is Cassandra, her...well...best friend." She wondered if she should've told them that Cassandra was Gothel's daughter and so, indirectly her sister. She decided she'll tell them later.

"Rapunzel? Are you the daughter of King Frederick and Queen Arianna of Corona?" Iduna asked her.

"Yes." She replied.

Iduna turned to Eugene.

"And you are the son of King Edmund of the Dark Kingdom aren't you?" She asked.

Eugene was astonished. "Wha...yes! How did you know!?"

"You've got the dark seal on your shoulder, which is given to only those of high honour in the kingdom. And you look a lot like Edmund was in his youth. So, just figured you'd be him."

"You know my father?!" Eugene asked.

Agnarr smiled. "He was one of our strongest allies."

"Wow." Eugene gasped.

"But, what's happened here?" Cassandra asked. She connected some dots and turned to Alex. "Did you rush through the wedding because of all this? You knew that they were alive!?"

"You rushed through the wedding?" Iduna asked him mildly surprised.

"Erm...yes." Alex was starting to get a little bit awkward.

"So you did know that they were alive. And everyone else too?" Cassandra assumed.

"No! Of course I didn't know! No one knew." Alex was adamant now.

"So then, why did you rush?" Cassandra asked skeptical.

"I learned about it during the wedding; specifically while reading through the list of those who remained absent for the wedding. And no one else apart from all of us present here got to know." Alex explained calmly.

"Well, someone gave it all away...cause there are rumors spreading all around." Cassandra said.

"He asked me to spread the rumor." Mattias came to his defence.

Cassandra blinked in confusion.

"Wait, what?" Agnarr asked.

"Why would you do that?" Iduna asked surprised. She already knew the thing about the spreading rumors, but had no idea that they were spread deliberately.

"So that we won't have a situation where we reveal you both to the kingdom, and everyone starts screaming that there are two ghosts in the castle...kinda like Olina did." He told them.

"Oh..." Cassandra was embarrassed. "Olina?" She asked to no one in particular.

"But how did your names end up under that list?" Rapunzel asked Agnarr politely.

"That's exactly what we are here to discuss if you don't mind." Alex said looking at Agnarr and Iduna.

That's when it dawned on them both that Alex had led them straight to the conference chambers. That was honestly pretty smart move.

They were all sitting at the table in the centre of the room. Anna had explained everything to the Coronans and Agnarr and Iduna about all that had happened during the course of the day before.

Alex wordlessly took the lead in discussion.

"First off, do you know anything of that army from yesterday? Alex asked.

"No." Agnarr answered.

"And, what happened between the Glitharis?" Alex asked.

Agnarr launched into a story. "It was just a year ago when the rift occured. There were two possible leaders they could get. Both were capable brothers, and their father was the previous leader. He died a year ago, and left the tribe to his two sons. One of the brothers wanted to continue the legacy of his father, but the other wanted to be free from that island. He started gathering followers to build an army. Naturally, the other brother retaliated because he saw that there were multiple factors which went against them. But he was too late. The Glitharis were already split in half. Half of them wanted war with other kingdoms to conquer them, and half of the others wanted to live a life of peace. We were in the group that wanted peace. The younger brother couldn't continue his campaign without more numbers, so he started to force those who wanted peace to fight. The older brother who wanted to live in peace begged him to reconsider his doings. He didn't agree. Day by Day, the tensions grew. Attacks started to happen. No one was safe anymore. There was an invisible border between us, that if any of each side crossed, they would be killed immediately. A message arrived just four days from now, saying that if we did not fight the other kingdoms, then we'd have to fight our own tribe. We stalled, but we were forced into the fighting as the other group descended down on us with weapons. The tension reached an extreme point and finally broke. That's when you came along. Just yesterday."

"But then, I don't understand. How did we get this?" Elsa asked holding up a small page torn from a diary. The page didn't have much written in it, but it did some mentions of a few new names and what they both had discovered about the Glitharis.

"I don't know that either. We burned all the diaries we had just four years ago." Iduna stated.

"What? Why?" Olaf was confused.

"So that no one could identify us." Agnarr told him.

"So, that page somehow remained; and fell into the hands of someone, who then placed it in the cards." Anna assumed.

"But, why did you write your names on this page if you didn't want anyone to figure out your true identities?" Elsa asked.

"That's because we didn't write our names on it in the first place." Agnarr stated simply.

"Wait, what?" Cassandra asked clearly not liking where this was going.

Agnarr nodded and gently plucked the piece of paper out of Elsa's allowing fingers. He analyzed it for a second and laid it down so that everyone could see. He explained.

"If you look closely at the letter 'A' at the end of Iduna's name, that stroke isn't cursive. It's flat. None of us would do that."

"Couldn't it just be a blunder?" Eugene asked logically. Rapunzel elbowed him hard and Cassandra glared. "I mean, not that I don't believe you, just, hoping you didn't forget accidentally writing your names or something." He quickly corrected himself.

"It's not. As far as I know Agnarr, he's always given the utmost care to his handwriting, even in the most extreme situations." Iduna told him frowning slightly.

Agnarr appreciated her for defending him.

"But the real question is, who wrote it?" Kristoff asked.

Everyone fell silent at that.

"Elsa, can't you do that memory thing to reveal who has last written on this letter?" Anna suggested.

"It won't work Anna. I could barely conjure up the spearhead. And whatever water there was as spare in the parchment is now gone. So, I can't do it even if we want just an outline of a face." She added quickly looking at Alex.

She knew him too well.

Alex looked down again trying to think of a different approach. It clicked. "Mattias, where were the cards kept two nights before the wedding?"

"In the storage rooms on the ground floor southside. Why?" He asked back.

"I heard something that night. A door crash on the southside. I couldn't find anything."

"The guard searched there. They never found anything suspicious in there." Mattias said.

"Check again." Alex commanded. Being the military advisor, he was in a way, rank higher than Mattias was. Though he couldn't command him directly, Mattias always found sense in his logic and was most of the times happy to follow and help.

He agreed to do that.

"Wait, what if the army is the same one who destroyed the Glitharis a hundred years ago?" Eugene asked. He was now well versed in history and the disappearance of Glitharis wasn't exactly a small event or a secret one.

"It is possible that their descendants are responsible for whatever that happened yesterday." Kristoff formulated a theory.

"Maybe. But we can't get real answers just yet." Alex did support the theory, but it needed hard proof. Otherwise, it had the potential to fail just as much as it had to succeed. There seemed to be a higher chance for it to fail than succeed.

They spent a few more hours discussing the positions they were in. After that, everyone came to follow a plan Alex and Mattias proposed.

"Okay, so in summary, the plan is to do what exactly?" Olaf asked.

"First, we need more information about the army we're dealing with here. I assume it won't be a very difficult task to track down where this bolt came from." He held up the Steelwood arrow. "Next, is to figure out what their plans are, and what the guy who put that parchment in those cards intends to do." He turned to Mattias. "We don't want the responsibility of any royal getting hurt on our heads. This can start wars."

"I'll see to it that the security around the kingdom is increased." He said nodding.

He turned to the duo sitting opposite to him.

"Agnarr, Iduna; you'll need to figure out how to reveal yourselves to the kingdom. Kristoff, Anna... you're the king and queen. And Elsa..."

"I'm coming with you." She said unexpectedly.

Alex was taken aback. She was supposed to watch the forest and keep the spirits in check.

He thought about it for a second. It certainly wouldn't hurt as the Northuldra were safe and Arendelle was certainly safer than any other kingdom out there. Besides, it would probably only take around half a day's trip to and back from the kingdom of Aislecia where the Steelwood arrows are made.

"Are you sure?" He asked her wondering if she wanted to do this to take a break from yesterday's events. She certainly needed one.

She nodded surely.

Alex saw a flash of slight disappointment in Agnarr's eyes but was quickly replaced by understanding.

Alex smiled at her and nodded back approvingly.

"Wait. What about us?" Eugene asked.

"You know the situation now. Corona's stood against the Glitharis with Arendelle for a long time. If that army attacked us, there's no telling whether you all are safe. Alert the kingdom, and make sure to avoid wars wherever you can." Alex told them.

The opinion was accepted.

It was already half past four in the afternoon when they finally got out of the conference chambers. They were extremely hungry. Agnarr, Iduna, Elsa, Anna and Alex had been living off mugs of hot chocolate and some small snacks since they left after the wedding. At least they all had time to clean up. As soon as they exited through the doors, the five were whisked away to the dining halls by the castle staff. Kai had already told them of the two new people in their midst so they weren't as surprised, but still enough to squeal with delight and jump around excitedly at having their former leaders back.

Alex and Elsa were scheduled to leave the next day. After the physician saw the wounds they had sustained, he was simply horrified, but worked fast all the same.

"Count yourself lucky sir. Not many survive the wound of being hit by an arrow." He said to an Alex who grinned.

"Trust me, I've survived worse." Alex said to the physician raising his shirt to reveal numerous other scars making the physician recoil in horror.

Eugene gasped at the sight of Alex's wound and scars as a haunting memory came rushing to him. The feeling of bleeding to death still made him shiver. He remembered how he'd felt when he had been stabbed with a long bladed knife. At first, he had felt nothing but pain. The desperation overcame him and the pain started receding. But it never came back as he felt himself getting weaker by the tick of a clock. He was losing blood at a rapid rate and as a result, his strength. He remembered blacking out after his last desperate attempt to cut Rapunzel's hair. It made him shudder.

Alex caught that movement and lowered his shirt immediately. "Sorry for that." He apologized.

"No no! Just, it's so... horrible to even think about the pain. Honestly if Rapunzel wasn't there, I would have died in agony, if I didn't die of bleeding." Eugene said.

"Speaking of Rapunzel, the last time I saw her, she didn't have the golden hair after losing the stone." Alex asked him.

"I honestly don't know how it happened, but one day, we just woke up and she had that hair."

"I thought the stones were gone after Zhan Tiri's attack?" Alex asked him back.

The physician was done with his job. He stood up and left with a curt bow, which Alex wished people would stop giving.

Alex stood up to wear his jacket. It was just the three of them in the room. Alex, Kristoff and Eugene. He was surprised that Ryder hadn't shown up yet, but brushed it off as an unnecessary concern.

"They were. But both Rapunzel and Cassandra woke up to find themselves back with their powers." Eugene told them.

"Hmm... that's weird." Kristoff said.

"Yeah. Some idiots even believe that the powers which flew upwards 'ricocheted' off an invisible barrier and directly fell back on Rapunzel and Cassandra."

Kristoff laughed. "Really?!"

"Yeah. You wouldn't believe what theories people come up with. One said that Rapunzel was actually the daughter of the spirits and not of queen Arianna!"

Kristoff laughed harder at that. He was imagining weird things. "That's actually the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. This guy should probably meet Olaf. I'm pretty sure that they'll get along very well."

Kristoff and Eugene were clutching their bellies as they laughed their heads off.

Alex maintained a knowing smile on his face. 'Funny how people sometimes get it right and no one even cares' He thought to himself donning his jacket on and shaking his head slightly.