Thanks a lot @MaloKen17 for all the support until now. Your comments are really great to read since sometimes you point out things that even I didn't think of while writing them and that gives me motivation and ideas for everything I can do in the next chapters. It's just great to see someone liking the stuff I'm doing here. Also, welcome to the party @ElsaLuver and @KidOuttaCauses! Hope you're ready for the bumpy ride that's coming up in the future!

Anyway, happy reading!

"Will you help us?" Anna asked.

"I would be honoured to, your highness," Ingrid said with tears in her eyes.

"Oh please! Just call me Anna!" She laughed.

"I had never really expected her to come over to the good side so easily," Alex told Elsa, watching them from afar.

"Me neither! I guess now I understand why Anna is everyone's most favourite queen until now," Elsa replied, proud of her younger sister.

Alex looked over at her. Usually, younger siblings wanted to be just like their older siblings. In this case though, Elsa was the one who wanted to be like Anna.

"Hmm...the goofball princess really does make the kingdom stand out from the rest in terms of peace and happiness," Alex said.

Elsa laughed. Goofball princess was a name that Kristoff fondly referred to Anna by.

"True. Now I'm wishing that I'd turned over the kingdom to her sooner. The people certainly wouldn't have had to go through three whole years of trying to negotiate with a queen who hated council meetings."

"Who said Anna doesn't hate council meetings?" Alex replied.

"Wait, what!" Elsa exclaimed.

Alex laughed.

"But she always told me she liked to be at the council meetings!" Elsa cried in her defense.

"That was a simple lie she told you so that she could watch and learn from you on how to rule a kingdom, but that was only on the surface really. She just wanted to stay close to you," Alex revealed.

Elsa stayed silent for a while, pondering.

"You already knew about this, didn't you?" Alex asked.

"I did know that she wanted to stay close to me for the whole day! I just never gave it too much thought before," Elsa said.

"Well, you were always busy being queen. I've experienced the job firsthand and I really wouldn't blame you if you hadn't noticed those little details," Alex said in a soothing voice.

"Yeah. You being king for a day really had its ups and downs," Elsa laughed, remembering the disaster.

"Oh mostly downs. You did have a lot of trouble after that to clear up," Alex smiled knowingly.

"Better than giving the kingdom to someone you don't trust anyway," Elsa argued.

"Shush! You don't talk about trust to the people sent to kill you!" Alex joked.

"Murdering people for years really does put a damper on one's sense of humor, doesn't it?" Elsa winced at the rather terrible joke.

"Sorry. I guess I could just blame that I'm not a people person. Not even when talking to myself!"

Elsa laughed.

"Really? That made you laugh!" Alex shook his head in disbelief. "This is a strange world."

"Oh it definitely is," Elsa agreed, referring to the similarity between them. Elsa would be lying if she said she'd never talked to herself in the years of solitude.

They stayed silent for a while, watching Anna, Kristoff and Olaf comforting the crybaby that Ingrid was. Alex had certainly thought that Ingrid was someone on par with Honeymaren in terms of ferocity with which she could emotionally protect herself, but apparently he was wrong. She was just as vulnerable as Anna was, if not even more!

The same thought crossed through both of their minds simultaneously, but Elsa was the first to voice it out.

"When do we tell them what we've found?" Elsa's tone was serious.

"I need more time to figure out the whole story behind Aren and the four jewels," Alex said.

"Four?"

"The Moonstone belonging to Cassandra, Sundrop that Rapunzel protects and two others namely the Shadowjade and Flarestone."

"How do you know that there are four stones?" Elsa asked curiously.

"I'll explain everything later," Alex promised. "For now, I just want you to keep an eye on the spirits and Ahtohallan."

"Ahtohallan?"

"There's... something there that poses a risk to the whole world if it falls into the wrong hands," Alex told.

Elsa seemed to already have figured out her duties even before Alex had told her, but she also was a step ahead.

"The Shadowjade. It's...not in Ahtohallan, is it?"

Alex stayed quiet.

"Is that why you're worried?" Elsa pressed on.

Alex smiled. "Yes. The Shadowjade is somewhere in Ahtohallan. If it is just what it's name suggests, then it may be nothing short of a target for Narsilla. If it is, and she comes looking for it, I want you to keep it away from her hands but not use it."

"Of course I would never use such powers!" Elsa smiled reassuringly.

Alex chuckled with relief. He already knew that she would never use that stone, but he wanted her to know what she was dealing with anyway. He had seen firsthand what the powers of darkness were, and he didn't want anyone to experience them, especially someone like Elsa.

"Besides that, do you also know where the Flarestone is?" Elsa asked.

"I suspect that it's in…" Alex never got to complete the sentence.

"Aww you two make such a cute couple! Even though there is nothing cute about Alex!" Olaf remarked in glee running over to them after jumping over a log.

Elsa, thrown off by the word 'Couple' burst out laughing while blushing at the same time. Olaf was mostly so far away from the truth but sometimes, he just sprung up and hit right on the mark completely unexpectedly.

"Wait, what's the Flarestone?" Anna asked curiously coming up from behind him.

"It's just an old tale of hags and witches running around to find the Flarestone to look beautiful so that they could get that handsome prince of their dreams," Alex lied to her face.

If only that was the first time she had seen Alex lie, Elsa's jaw would have dropped on the spot at how casually he'd come up with the lie.

"That...seems like an interesting story?" Anna furrowed her eyebrows, suppressing her urge to laugh at the summary.

"It's an absolute flop of a story. I regret reading that," Alex said, putting on an unamused face. "I was just telling Elsa how many plot-holes it had."

"Ooo how many?" Olaf asked curiously.

"Forty-three major plot holes and still counting," Alex replied, keeping his cool.

Olaf gasped, wide eyed. "Forty-three is a big number!"

"Sounds like a hard read," Kristoff said, coming up from behind Anna.

"It is. I wouldn't corrupt my mind by even trying to find that book," Alex said.

"Well alright. It's off my reading list then," Anna said.

Elsa almost wanted to laugh at how easily he had avoided a situation, but kept herself composed. She knew he had lied so that the information he held didn't cause mass panic. Anna seemed to have forgotten about Narsilla.

"Hey, uh Olaf, could you go get mother and father here?" Anna asked.

"Sure thing!" Olaf quickly hurried away.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Kristoff and Anna turned back to Elsa and Alex.

"Okay spill it out. What's going on here between you two?" Anna commanded.

Alex and Elsa both blinked in surprise and then looked at each other.

"Noth- nothing is going on Anna!" Elsa quickly stammered, blushing furiously.

"We know exactly when you're lying, so come out clean before mother and father get here," Anna threatened.

"You- you've got the wrong idea about us," Alex said wide-eyed and blushing slightly.

Kristoff and Anna frowned.

"What idea?" Kristoff asked.

"And why are you both blushing?" Anna asked, confused.

"You can try standing out here in the sun and not get red!" Elsa quickly lied, seeing that they weren't asking them about the relation between Alex and her.

"I didn't know you had sensitive skin?" Anna gasped and pulled Elsa into the shade of a tree.

"Oh the Northuldra summer is just a little bit different," Elsa chuckled nervously.

"Back to the topic, there's something that you're not telling us," Kristoff accused Alex.

"Err…there's…a lotta things I'm not telling you yet. You've just become king and I'm trying to take stuff slow before I expose you to the horrors of ruling a kingdom," Alex said. He was a fully capable liar, but sometimes, just didn't know when to lie.

"Wha…no that's not what I was askin- wait WHAT!" Kristoff exclaimed with a multitude of expressions battling to be displayed on his face, while Anna looked bewildered and Elsa just slapped her forehead.

"I- oh nevermind that! We just wanna know what's going on with Narsilla," Anna asked, pulling herself out of her shock rather quickly.

Alex had revealed him keeping a few secrets from the new king and queen in hopes to dodge that question by distracting them, but that did not happen, unfortunately.

"Narsilla?" Elsa asked. "What do you mean?"

"You've been trying to find out more about her haven't you?" Kristoff asked Elsa.

She bit her lip, looked at Alex and then back and nodded.

Anna, instead of coming up with a thousand questions to ask and pout about Elsa not including her in the search party, just sighed as if letting off a huge weight off her shoulders.

"Wait, you both as well?" Elsa asked, surprised.

"You didn't think I'd forget about the only thing that kept mother and father away from us this whole time, did you?" Anna asked.

She was right. How could Elsa have been so silly? There was no way Anna would ever forget such a thing!

"Did you find something?" Alex asked.

"Well, yeah! Quite a lot too!" Kristoff said, petting Sven who came up behind him.

"All because of Sven really!" Anna laughed, proud of the reindeer.

"Yeah, if it wasn't for him wrecking the old hidden library, we'd never have found the book under the trapdoor," Kristoff said laughing nervously and looking at a disgruntled Anna. She was the one to have to clean up the mess of the library because no one else apart from them knew of its existence, so no one could help her.

"Old hidden library?" Iduna exclaimed wide eyed coming from Alex's left with Agnarr and Olaf in tow.

"And you guys wrecked it!" Agnarr gawped at them with wide eyes as if it was a prized possession that got destroyed.

"Ah, but it wouldn't have happened if SOMEONE wasn't being a scary mommy to Sven," Olaf said, looking at Anna who pursed her lips and cowered apologetically.

"How did you even find that room?" Agnarr asked.

"Olaf and Anna were playing around in the library and stumbled on the switch around half a year ago," Kristoff said.

"Ah I see. I've missed that room," Agnarr said dreamily.

"Me too! We had our first kiss there!" Iduna said, excitedly.

"Such good ol' times," Agnarr said, wrapping an arm around Iduna and pulling her in.

"Aww, you guys are so sweet and cute and cuddly and warm and kissy and huggy and red!" Olaf exclaimed.

"Oh you have no idea Olaf," Elsa laughed, recalling all the times she had seen them kissing and making out in the hallways as a toddler. Although toddlers don't remember anything, Ahtohallan had shown her the memories she had as a toddler as well for some reason.

They both laughed and turned even redder.

"Ooo what idea?" Olaf asked, wide eyed and curious.

"Ahem, I think we need to get back to our original discussion," Kristoff said, shaking his head at the bizarreness that was going on.

"Oh yes right!" Anna immediately snapped to attention. She turned to her parents, "we were just wondering what you could tell us about Narsilla."

The name seemed to throw them off for a second, but they recovered.

"Well, Narsilla is an evil witch for one," Agnarr said.

"That's kinda very obvious," Elsa said. "What else do you know about her?"

"There's not much we can tell you about her," Iduna said. "Things as far as we know, began around a hundred years ago."

It was a stormy night as Agnarr and Iduna's horses trudged through the gravel.

"Where is she?" Agnarr asked, turning to his left towards his wife.

"I think she's somewhere close by!" Iduna yelled over the howling stormwinds.

No sooner had she finished her sentence, a large rock came hurtling down the cliffside in front of them. Normally, anyone else would have raced away from that rock, but the duo instead, rushed towards it.

"Oh my dear chubby cheeks!" Bulda the troll greeted Agnarr happily, unfolding from the form of the boulder.

"Bulda! Oh we thought we'd never find you!" Iduna exclaimed, relieved.

"You didn't. I found you," Bulda laughed, making Iduna grin sheepishly.

"Come on now! Pabbie is waiting for you!" Bulda exclaimed and started to roll away.

"Wait! Do you know why he called on us this suddenly?" Agnarr asked, agitated. He wanted to get back to Elsa quickly. She had gone to bed, crying because she had hurt Anna with magic just two days prior. He knew his priorities as a parent, but it wasn't everyday that a threat big enough as Pabbie had mentioned loomed over Arendelle every day in his urgent message an hour ago.

"No! But it's not like he'd call humans, let alone royalty, to meet up with him, so it must be something really important!"

Agnarr and Iduna glanced over at each other. They both wanted to get over with this quickly and get home. Agnarr remembered that the report of the search party sent out a few years ago to locate the lost boy was going to be given that night. He did not want to miss that one. It was crucial that he held up his promise to his dearest friend to protect the boy.

Agnarr and Iduna followed Bulda and entered a clearing where boulders had scattered quite randomly. The other trolls were apparently asleep. Off to a far edge they saw another old troll with a rather large nose beckoning at them to go toward him. Bulda broke away from them and headed off in another direction while Agnarr and Iduna swiftly walked over to the largest of the boulders.

"I'm sorry to have called you out here so rudely, but there was no other way or place to tell you this," Grand Pabbie apologized.

"It's fine. I know you have reasons," Agnarr quickly shook his head.

"Then let me get straight to the point. There is a threat looming over Elsa's life and the world," Pabbie said.

"What threat?"

"Her name is Narsilla. She is a demoness, immortal and purely evil. She seeks powers unimaginable to humans and to replace the world as we know it with her own dream world. I suppose you may already have guessed where this is going?" Pabbie asked them, expectantly.

"A classic villain who wants to destroy the world as we know it? I think I have a pretty good idea of what you mean," Agnarr grinned. In stories like these, there's always that one hero who rises up and defeats the bad guy.

"Yes, but she's no typical villain who a hero can rise up and defeat just like that," Pabbie crushed Agnarr's thoughts. "She has wiped out entire legions of skilled warriors and heroes with a simple flick of her wrist. Even the elemental spirits, the guardians of this world, hesitate to stand up against her."

That last line wiped the grin off of Agnarr's face. He knew that the legendary elementals were the most powerful beings in the world, capable enough to be able to control anything and everything they wanted. They were essentially gods, manifested in the forms of air, fire, earth and water. If even they were afraid, Narsilla was no less of the gods themselves.

"Fortunately for us, after her last fight and her banishment into the deepest voids of a dimensional prison, her powers have not yet recovered and won't do so until another few years. We only have a small amount of time before she is at her fullest capabilities," Pabbie said.

"How much?" Iduna asked. She had a doubt that a 'few years' in troll meant a long time for humans.

"About fifty years until she can gain back all the energy," Pabbie said.

Her doubts were right. Fifty years was a really small amount of time for the old guy, but she was also relieved. Narsilla was not a threat until then.

"Why did she appear now? How do we face her?" Agnarr's face was contorted with worry.

"She had already appeared a long while ago. I could only sense her presence now because her magical prowess rose up to where I can feel the ominous power around in nature. As to how we would be able to face her, I do not know. The Northern lights won't show anything. It is almost as if she has cloaked her very existence!"

Iduna bit her lip. "She will be coming after Elsa, won't she?"

"I suspect so. She will do anything to get powerful," Pabbie told her grimly.

"How do we protect her then?" Agnarr asked immediately.

"There is one way. Narsilla, however powerful she is, cannot sense the presence of another magical being. That is her weakness. As long as Elsa's powers are kept secret, Narsilla will never be able to find her," Pabbie informed.

"How do you know she can't sense Elsa's powers?" Iduna asked. "As far as I've learnt from various books referring to magic, sensing another being's powers are just the most basic of exercises!"

Grand Pabbie laughed. "Oh my dear misguided human beings!" He taunted. "Magic is not something so readily available other than to those already born with it! To wield magic, one's human body is simply not capable. The only way to wield magic is to expose someone to magical forces even before birth or modify one's living cells to be able to channel and store magic."

"I don't understand," Agnarr said, confused. "Elsa was never exposed to magic of any sort."

"Sometimes, beings are born with magical talents as in the case with Elsa even though they're never exposed to any sort of magic. What I'm speaking of in Narsilla's case is that she has modified her body through alchemy to be able to sustain massive amounts of magic flowing through her. Think of magic like a river and the cells like the houses of a town. The more magic you accumulate, the more is the flow, the more the force of the flood. If one does not design the buildings in the town to withstand that force, the buildings will be destroyed. Similarly, the cells in one's body have a limit to how much power they can withstand at a time. If that threshold is crossed, the cells literally start to vaporize. That is why, magic is not easily accessible to ordinary humans or even other creatures unless they are able to modify their bodies to be able to withstand such massive forces and of course, people would much rather not have magic than experiment with their bodies and modify them and possibly killing themselves."

It all made sense now.

"Magically sensing powers is different from intuitively sensing an ominous presence. Magically sensing powers is essentially ordering your body's cells to detect the faintest of faintest traces of magical residues like smelling something from hundreds or thousands of miles away while you yourself are smelly. If anything, sensing a magical presence is far more difficult than actually wielding fire magic or the magic that your fantasy novels claim your absurdly untrained heroes to have!"

"I knew you'd say that one day!" Agnarr laughed, making Pabbie chuckle.

"So she's safe?" Iduna asked.

"For now, yes. But it is critical for you to understand that Elsa could very well become the most powerful magical being in existence, surpassing Narsilla. If that happens, Narsilla will not target her, but the closest ones to her. If she breaks Elsa, she will win the battle. You do understand, don't you?" Pabbie asked, a sadness in his voice.

Agnarr and Iduna looked at each other, each one coming to the same conclusion. They cannot protect Elsa from this. Once the time comes, they can only get out of the way. The realisation of their powerlessness hit them like an iron ram, crushing their hopes. Iduna's eyes were already welling up with tears.

"And Anna? What about her? Won't Narsilla try to get to her even if we… we… won't be there?" Agnarr asked Pabbie.

"I do not know. Only fate will reveal what it has in store for her," Pabbie replied.

Agnarr closed his eyes to hide his tears. "Why them? Why not anyone else? Why are they the ones to have to face this monster that calls itself fate!" He finally asked.

Pabbie smiled sadly, already prepared for the question, "alas! That is the very question that no one else, except for them, can know the answer to."

"I know that you're angry, but… you could say that we just had an intuition," Iduna told Elsa, her eyes still searching for forgiveness.

She closed her eyes. So that was why they had tried to hide her powers. They were never afraid of the people, they were afraid of Narsilla. It didn't matter now. The deeds were in the past and the future was what mattered most.

Elsa gave her a smile and shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. What's important is that no one is missing in our family."

Iduna beamed at that.

"That's all we really know about her. This was all Pabbie told us that day," Agnarr said.

"So then we know that she's immortal, that she can wield magic, she has somehow modified her… cells to be able to withstand heavy magical forces," Anna summed, frowning. "That's literally everything that the book we found offered!"

"Normally, I'd ask if grandpa and grandma were the ones who wrote the book, but judging by their bewildered and shocked faces, I don't think that they wrote it," Olaf said, putting on his detective face and squinting at Agnarr and Iduna sideways.

"I think they're more shocked that you called them grandparents!" Kristoff voiced for Sven, almost dying with laughter at their faces.

"Oops, sorry! I forgot that age is just a number!" Olaf cried.

Agnarr chuckled. "It's okay Olaf, but you can call us by our names as well."

"Okay mister father and missus mother!" Olaf jumped with joy, making everyone snicker.

"Oh so close yet so far!" Anna laughed, shaking her head and remembering her younger self.

"Hahahaha, but wait. If I call them my parents, then does that make Elsa my sister or my mother?" Olaf asked and goggled at Elsa.

"Err..." she definitely did not know how to even answer that.

"Ahem, how're we even going to fight against this?" Anna asked, pulling them back on topic before it could get seriously out of hand with Olaf's questions. It wasn't that they didn't want to answer his questions, but just not then.

"Fighting her is something we can decide later," Elsa said, gesturing to Olaf to hold that question for a bit later.

"She's correct. Right now, we need as much information about this whole… mess that's getting created," Alex said, leaning against a tree and stroking his chin.

"Mess? What mess?" Anna quickly asked. As far as she knew, Narsilla was just another villain who wanted to destroy the world.

Alex pondered over the question. He had used the wrong word to form the sentence but the reality was just that. A complete mess with the inclusion of Aren, the four stones, the four spirits, the previous fifth elemental spirit and so many other factors that wanted to overthrow their understanding of Narsilla. He did need a little bit more time but at this stage, it probably might not hurt to let them in on the secrets. He looked around at their faces, each one displaying curiosity and smiled.

"How about I show it to you instead?"