Happy New Year people! Things are getting quite heated, both IRL as well as here. Its not long before stuff is gonna go epic in this story. Just a few chapters now (considering my brain doesn't decide to take a detour in the story) before our protagonists inevitably meet Narsilla.
"What are you doing?" Anna asked, watching as Alex wrote something on a sheet of parchment. He had a flat, spacious style of writing unlike Elsa or herself who had a cursive style.
"I think that our Coronan friends need to know this part of their history. I'm writing to them to make sure they arrive here as fast as possible," Alex said. "With your permission, of course."
"Of course! They're welcome here anytime, and you're already permitted to write for anyone without my consent, but what do they have to do with Narsilla?" Anna asked, folding her arms in confusion.
"Many things. I'll tell you all about it a bit later," Alex promised.
Anna sighed and looked at the others as Elsa told them what she had seen in Ahtohallan about Narsilla. She was still a bit paranoid of Elsa going into that sacred glacier that had almost killed her, but she didn't want to stop her from going there. She trusted her to not get in trouble. They had raced back to Arendelle castle on Alex's word.
"Arendelle castle is the best place to begin searching for a few old historical secrets," he had said.
Anna looked out of the window upon the beautiful kingdom.
It was a beautiful day with people bustling about the city with joy. Mattias had certainly kept the place well guarded. There were no more conspiracies or riots against the Northuldra spreading around, turning allies against each other. Apart from the few occasional complaints of building repairs, there was nothing much to report in the kingdom. Somehow, the efficiency of law enforcement and paperwork had been at an all-time high in centuries. Work was speedy, and the paychecks were accurately curated to fit each one's needs and workloads. Life in Arendelle was a dream come true for many, and all because of Elsa's rule. She had just been passed down the job of keeping it that way.
"Alright, Gale? Will you please deliver this to Rapunzel?" Alex held up the note as a gust of air swooped in and neatly plucked it out of his fingers and raced off. Apparently, she already knew Alex was going to ask.
"Okay, follow me everyone," Alex said as he shifted to the third shelf of the library, where he pulled out an old dusty book titled the 'Biography of the Goldfish' and put it on the table for everyone to see.
"Wait, what?" Anna looked at the title, completely bewildered.
"Oh god, that is so ingenious! It's so boring that I wouldn't even think of reading that! It's the perfect place to hide something like a map to a treasure!" Olaf exclaimed.
"Actually, it does hide the map to a treasure," Alex grinned as he opened the book.
No one could believe that a musty paged old book that looked as monotonous as possible could hide something so important!
"We've had that book for about a century, and we never even knew about its contents!" Iduna gawped.
"How did you even find that map?" Elsa asked, looking impressed.
"Easy. After I talked to Pabbie and came back, I started to look for the map. I figured that there must have been a map created when the tunnels were carved out underneath the castle and that the old hidden library wasn't old enough to hide that map or else someone would have found it. So I looked right here for the most boring book that I could find. It's an old trick by the book people used to hide critical things like paper bills and important documents. That's when I found this old volume," Alex gestured at the book he was holding.
Anna and Kristoff were confused. When did he ever go talk to Pabbie? What tunnels was he talking about?
"Wow, what are the chances!" Agnarr gaped.
Alex turned to page four hundred and thirty-three to reveal a parchment. It was yellowed and looked like it could fall apart at any time. He delicately put the map on the table and opened it.
"We're pretty lucky that none of our ancestors thought of clearing out the library for old books," Anna whispered to Elsa, who slowly nodded with her eyes glued to the map.
The writing had almost faded away except for a few select words and some long lines drawn haphazardly on the paper.
"It's the secret tunnel system under Arendelle, much like Corona," Alex explained, moving his finger along the lines on the paper.
Many lines along the parchment had faded away into the paper. From what they could discern, there was a large circle in the middle of the page and crooked lines emanating from it and extending outwards all over the place. There was another crooked line overlapping all others on the outside of the map, surrounding the central circle which looked like some sort of a boundary.
"These borders; they're like the old Arendelle before my father started expansion," Agnarr said, pointing at the crooked lines along the edges of the map.
"Indeed. Before the kingdom gained more land, these tunnels were constructed to get the royal family out of the castle and the kingdom if and when Arendelle was threatened. Most of these tunnels pass under the seabed of the fjord. Since they are quite old, of approximately a thousand years, I expect most of these tunnels to have collapsed or at least be on the verge of it," Alex said.
Elsa wondered why she never saw this information about the tunnels in the Arendelle history books. When she was young, she had read about all of them, but not even a single one of them ever mentioned such a crucial detail about the kingdom.
"I can't imagine how they built those tunnels a thousand years ago! What kind of technology did they even use?" Kristoff exclaimed, his eyes wide with excitement. He had been in some tunnel construction expeditions in the past and was fascinated by them. A true mountain man.
"Well, it was actually the earth giants who may have helped in these creations, but that's a topic for later," Alex informed. "What we're interested in, is over here to the north tunnel," Alex pointed at the end of a tunnel and a small circle attached to it.
"What is it?" Elsa asked, furrowing her eyebrows and squinting her eyes to read the small text written below the circle.
"That's where the real legendary sword, Revolute, lies," Alex said.
There was a gap of a second as they processed this information. Elsa's jaw dropped open, but she wasn't alone. Everyone around the room looked like they were hit in the head with a metal bat.
"B-but I thought that the sword was destroyed in the battle against the Nattmara!" Kristoff said, bewildered.
"The sword that got destroyed was just a replica of the real thing. The real sword could literally cut through mountains. A measly sand monster won't stand a chance against this," Alex said.
It made sense. The replicated sword had shattered on impact against the black sand wolf called the Nattmara. There was no possible way that a sword of legend that had cut through the entire fjord was going to break that easily, but its strengths and weaknesses were still quite unknown. No one had thought of it that way.
Each of them recovered through their shock one by one, but they still stayed silent, knowing what the next step would be.
"What do you say? Ready for another adventure?" Alex grinned at Elsa, who looked back at him and smiled, her blue eyes twinkling with excitement. Oh she was definitely ready.
"Where are we going?" Kristoff yelled over the wind and his horse's grunts. Sven had suddenly fallen ill at the Northuldran camp, so Ryder was watching over him.
"We're following the tunnel from above the ground. We should be reaching our destination in just a bit," Alex called out to him over the thundering feet of his pitch dark stallion appropriately named Shadowmane. The tunnels had likely all collapsed blocking the way to the sword.
Elsa clutched Alex's waist tightly as the horse suddenly jumped over a log in the forest, making the cloth wrapped package tied to the sides of the horse slap against her legs. She could see why the move was so sudden. The dark thunderclouds gathered above were blocking sunlight so much that the mid-afternoon sun had been rendered nothing but a dimly lit bulb. She wasn't exactly surprised at the sudden change in the weather. That wasn't the first summer she had seen completely enveloped by rain clouds. Asking Nokk to give her a ride was out of the question when she didn't need him. He let her ride on him as a personal favor, sometimes even teasing her or all humans in general for their slow, weak legs. If one were to say, Nokk was not an animal who would obey every order a person would give like a normal horse would. He was intelligent and human in every way except form.
"It looks like it's about to rain," Elsa told Alex worriedly, as a distant rumble rolled towards them.
"It is," Alex replied, sounding a bit happy.
She chuckled. Of course, he would be enjoying it. He loved rain!
"Oh no! It's going to rain! But I only got this cloak about half a week ago!" Anna whined.
"Don't worry, Elsa will coat you guys up in her hydrophobic icy clothes!" Olaf said from behind her.
Kristoff just looked sideways at him, wondering what hydrophobic was. "Do you mean a raincoat?"
"Wait, you can actually do that?" Iduna asked Elsa in surprise.
"I can do a lot of things. I just don't know about ninety percent because I haven't yet even thought of doing them," Elsa replied.
"So you're in the dark about the capabilities of your own powers as much as we are?" Agnarr asked, surprised.
"Basically, yeah."
'Makes sense,' Iduna thought to herself. 'Otherwise she would have figured out ways to control her powers a long time ago.'
Shadowmane came to a slow halt and the other horses with Agnarr, Iduna, Kristoff and Anna came to a halt as well.
"This should do," Alex said, looking at the ground beneath the feet of his horse.
"Okay, what are we looking for?" Anna asked.
"Something to dig," Alex said looking at Elsa.
She smiled and got off the horse. She knew they were going to have to dig and had prepared an idea to do so.
"You're not going to make spades of ice for us are you?" Kristoff joked.
"Well that is the idea," Elsa replied, smirking at him as she readied her powers.
Kristoff looked alarmed and moved away as her powers started to envelop the whole three-meter radius in front of her.
"Don't make the spades too large! Kristoff might not even be able to lift them up!" Olaf laughed while Kristoff gave him a friendly little glare.
Elsa waved her arms and the millions of particles of ice in the air started to rapidly move around in circles as if they were caught up in a tornado. Then, she made a wall of ice surrounding the spinning tornado extending beneath the ground and covering a rather large circumference compared to the tornado. After the setup was complete, Elsa brought her hands down in a sharp motion. Suddenly, the ground began shaking as massive mounds of dirt and plants were churned up in the onslaught of ice crystals digging in deep beneath the ground and then tossing the collection to the side in a tangential motion The mud and stones were flying everywhere but the wall surrounding the tornado blocked all of it, so it didn't reach the others.
Kristoff's jaw dropped in awe at the sheer amount of power that was surging through the storm to dig up the earth beneath it at such a rapid rate. If even the strongest miners were to gather up and start digging as fast as possible, they still wouldn't be able to dig a hole forty meters deep in one minute! That's exactly what she did without even breaking a sweat.
After she was done, she turned around and the tornado along with the wall simply flaked away into nothingness. She giggled at Anna and Kristoff's awed expressions.
"Anna, you haven't seen my powers at work for the first time!" Elsa laughed.
"Oh no no of course I haven't! But this is just… next level!" Anna gawped.
Agnarr and Iduna were standing a bit further behind. They were getting used to constant surprises getting sprung up on them by now.
"Come on! Let's jump! Maybe we'll find Alice down there!" Olaf yelled and ran over to the hole.
"I really don't think we're gonna find anyone down there," Kristoff chuckled and caught Olaf by his head right above the hole.
Kristoff tried to get him back to the edge of the pit, but failed as Olaf's bottommost parts dropped out into the hole. He giggled as Kristoff half yelled trying to catch the falling parts, but his laugh quickly turned into a small scream and then a very long 'oooooooooh!' as if he had fallen onto something pointy.
"Olaf! Are you okay?" Elsa asked, quickly coming over to her snowy comrade.
"No. I'm definitely hurt!" Olaf squealed.
"I didn't grab you that hard?" Kristoff tried to defend himself.
"Not you! My butt fell right onto something pointy!" Olaf gasped in pain.
"You… can feel your butt even after it's… detached?" Kristoff asked him, giving him a weird look.
"Of course I can, you dummy! We snowpeople can still feel our parts even when they're detached just like humans can feel their limbs after they have been detached from their bodies!"
"Uhh, I seriously doubt that. We don't feel our finger if it gets cut off!" Kristoff exclaimed. "Right?" He asked Alex sarcastically.
Alex cocked an eyebrow, giving him the 'only one way to find out' kind of look which wiped the grin off his face.
"Yeah no we definitely don't feel anything after we cut our fingers off," Kristoff clarified, making Olaf gasp.
"You don't? That's fascinating!" Olaf exclaimed.
Anna burst out laughing, contagiously spreading it.
"Well, now we definitely have to go down to retrieve my butt," Olaf said.
"Almost makes me not want to go down there when you phrase it like that," Kristoff grumbled, making the ones who heard him snort and snicker.
"Come on you guys!" Anna bounced excitedly, grabbing Elsa's hand and pulling her toward the giant hole.
"How're we going to get down though?" Agnarr asked curiously.
"Can you make some stairs, Elsa?" Iduna asked.
"Already done," Elsa replied, lowering her hand. As they looked down into the hole, they could see a clear silver blue spiral ice staircase along the walls and a safety rail with intricate and beautiful designs. She had also wrapped the sides of the hole with strongly interconnected patterns of two inch radius rods of ice to prevent a cave in. It was both powerful and beautiful.
"Right, all we now need is a source of light," Kristoff said, looking around for some firewood to make makeshift torches.
"Got them right here," Alex said, coming up from behind them with a few burning torches in his hands.
"So that was what was in the bag tied to Shadowmane!" Anna exclaimed. "Seems you had planned all of this."
"Of course I had a plan! You can't really go on a treasure hunt without one, can you?" Alex grinned.
"Aren't treasure hunts all about fun surprises?" Anna asked.
"You'd quickly change your mind if you can't see your way around, and you fall and impale yourself on whatever Olaf fell on," Alex stated, pushing a torch in her hand.
As they descended the stairs, Anna and Olaf kept on their usual rambles.
"... do you think that the ghosts of all the ants and centipedes and other creepy crawlies you killed in that digging of yours will leave us alone?" Anna asked Elsa.
"Anna! Stop making me feel more guilty than I already am!" Elsa pleaded.
"Wait, you're guilty about killing ants?" Anna asked, seemingly surprised.
"I- I… " Elsa stammered, looking confused while the others snickered at Anna's antics.
"Ooo, maybe we'll find a big rodent which would want to eat us like the one Rapunzel told us about!" Olaf chimed in.
"A giant rodent that wants to eat people? Isn't it a bit… ridiculous?" Iduna asked.
"Can't really say much about animals these days," Elsa sighed. "We have a salamander who can set things on fire and a reindeer that understands exactly what we're saying. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the spider ghosts Anna is talking about suddenly grows big and tries to eat us," Elsa said, smirking wickedly at Anna.
'That was a really nasty low blow.' Alex thought to himself.
"Sp… spider?" Anna stammered, wide-eyed, halting in her tracks on the stairs.
"Ooo I'd love to meet a spider!" Olaf exclaimed without a care to refer to context.
"No Olaf! A spider is a hairy, eight legged beast who wraps its prey in a web and then sucks it dry by drinking blood through a straw!" Agnarr said loudly, making everyone look at him in surprise. He pursed his lips right after saying that as if it had been a mistake.
"The cat's out of the bag now," Iduna whispered, almost bursting out laughing.
"You're afraid of spiders too, aren't you?" Kristoff asked him, amused.
"Like father, like daughter," Olaf said with an ear to ear smile.
"You know, it's not just blood that they drink. It's literally all your organs and fats as well," Alex whispered in his ear, making him stiffen up with terror.
"You're not helping!" Agnarr whispered back angrily.
"I wasn't trying to," Alex laughed maliciously and moved ahead of him.
"Now I know which parent I inherited this fear from!" Anna exclaimed.
"You're actually afraid of spiders?" Elsa gaped at her father in surprise.
"They're terrifying!" Agnarr cried, making her snort with laughter.
"They're not that bad!" Kristoff said, looking at his wife and father-in-law in absolute surprise and mirth.
"You're a mountain man! You have no idea how terrifying they are! You're practically used to them!" Anna shuddered and Agnarr nodded in agreement, his comically fearful face making everyone laugh.
"Two birds with one stone eh?" Iduna whispered to Elsa as she watched the unfolding drama.
"The way they talk about spiders would make one think that they're more afraid of them than even Narsilla!" Elsa said, shaking her head.
"Oh Narsilla wouldn't strike a quarter of the amount of fear that a small spider would in them!" Iduna laughed as she went over to comfort her husband and Elsa went on to sheepishly apologize for scaring Anna and Agnarr even though it was unnecessary.
Alex simply chuckled. He would have to disagree with Iduna. If the others knew that Narsilla was actually living in Arendelle at the time they were exploring the hole, everyone would have panicked and lost their minds out of fright.
It took a while for them to convince Anna that there were no spiders lurking around the depths of the hole, but they did it.
After traveling about three more revolutions, they finally reached the bottom. The only way to tell which way was up was a small circular patch of gray above their heads. The overhanging clouds were threatening to dump all their goods right then and there. Considering that they were in the middle of a valley, the hole would flood rather quickly in heavy rainfall.
As soon as the last step formed beneath Elsa's foot as she was leading the group, a white creature came running and jumped at her. She gasped and ducked beneath the flying body and turned just in time for Anna to shriek loudly in terror as she had stood right behind Elsa and the white object had flung itself right at her chest.
Kristoff caught Anna by her armpits and Olaf's head rolled out of her arms right in front of the white, oddly shaped creature.
"NO! Bad butt! You don't jump at people like that! Especially the ladies! Look at poor Anna! You scared her out of her wits! Smack yourself!" Olaf commanded his snowy counterpart.
The others could only look down at Olaf's bottom half as it seemed to slump in dismay and hit itself with his twig arms.
Agnarr and Iduna were now truly confused. They had seen Olaf detach himself, but they had never seen the other parts acting individually of their own free will.
"Jumping… butts? Really?" Alex raised an eyebrow at Olaf who just grinned and fit his head back on his body.
"Okay, that definitely scared me half to death," Anna said, calming down a bit. "I might even have accidentally burped a little," she added, embarrassedly looking away from all the people who had started laughing.
"You didn't think it was a spooky spider, did you?" Kristoff teased, making Anna turn even more red.
"We're gonna have a new tomato sprouting up at this rate!" Elsa joined in poking her little sister to show her face.
"I'm not turning red! It's the torchlight!" Anna squealed adamantly, making them laugh even more.
Alex chuckled and turned to the center of the room. There was nothing there except for a small cylindrical protrusion from the ground. Even though there was a lot of dust settled on the floor from the mining tornado, Alex could make out faint traces of lines etched in stone below.
"What is that?" Kristoff asked curiously.
"That's the sword. It's just the hilt that's protruding from the ground," Alex said.
"So that was what I fell on!" Olaf gasped.
"Most likely," Elsa said, standing beside Alex on his left. She saw the lines as well and got ready to blast the dust away with a small snowstorm, but Alex silently covered her hand in his to stop her.
"So then who's gonna pull it out?" Anna asked.
"Kristoff," Alex answered, bluntly.
Kristoff didn't have a reaction for the first full second as he processed what Alex said.
"What?" Kristoff croaked after what seemed like an eternity.
"Go pull the blade out," Alex said simply.
"You're kidding," Kristoff half laughed.
"Nope."
"Stop messing around Alex," Kristoff frantically commanded.
"Why would I?"
"Why do you want me to pull it out?" Kristoff asked flat out.
"Because it's basically yours," Alex answered without offering any further explanation, making Kristoff gawp at him.
The Revolute couldn't possibly be his even in his wildest of dreams.
"What'll happen if he removes it?" Anna asked, concerned for Kristoff.
"I don't know. Anything can happen," Alex said, looking away at a blank wall.
"Why don't you go get it?" Kristoff asked.
"Because I can't. No one here except Iduna and you can pull out the sword," Alex said.
Kristoff looked bewildered at this point. It didn't make any sense.
"You won't make your mother-in-law do such a dangerous thing, would you?" Alex whispered mercilessly.
That hit a strong nerve and shattered it. Kristoff, being a gentleman, wouldn't put a lady's life in danger if he was present. That was a trait Anna loved in him but also one which frequently landed him in trouble with people in general.
"I'll do it," Kristoff said, quickly stepping to block Iduna's way as she was moving over to the sword.
"Wait Kristoff, are you sure you want to do this?" Agnarr asked, concerned.
"Of course," Kristoff answered even though he was unsure of himself.
Kristoff slowly walked over to the hilt of the sword sticking out of the floor. He examined it as he walked, noticing the many details shimmering in the torchlights of the people standing behind him, watching over him.
The hilt was a blackened shaft of what looked like pure gold. The end had a small grayish stone embedded loosely into it. Only a few strands of metal held on to the glimmering stone that seemed to twinkle lightly with a bright white flash. It was as if he was looking at the sun from an enclosure with hundreds of pin sized holes in it. It was somewhat beautiful yet painful at the same time. He reached the sword and knelt down to pull it out with his right arm. As soon as he touched the hilt the stone flared up a blinding white making everyone wince. Kristoff was surprised but he didn't let go.
"Remember, only those worthy to wield this weapon can actually wield it. Others who are not, will die if they touch it without the true master's will," Alex said, smiling widely.
"What the hell! You're telling me this NOW!" Kristoff yelled angrily, making Alex chuckle.
Anna's jaw dropped like lead. 'How could he take such a risk! Especially with someone else's life?'
"Don't worry, you're not dead so that's good news," Alex tried to comfort him.
Watching him be confident made her doubt herself. Was he actually taking a risk or did he actually know what he was doing? Past experiences such as these suggested that he knew exactly what he was doing and the risks of doing it as well. Also, there was the absolute certainty she had that however things had gotten out of hand he never risked other people's lives unless he was positive that he could pull them out of harm's way.
She could only watch as Kristoff struggled to pull out the blade. She only noticed a few seconds later that the floor they were standing on had started glowing and glittering with weird lines appearing out of nowhere. There was also a deep rumbling beneath the earth as if massive gears were turning beneath the floor that they were standing on. It was getting louder and more intense with each passing second, like a magic spell was getting activated as the fantasy and adventure novels always described it. Kristoff was worried about all the things that were happening, but Alex told him with a look to push forward and not stop. The white flash had reduced in its intensity but the bright light that originated from the stone at the hilt was still radiating brightly in cohesion with the surrounding lines which had now taken up the form of a circle with engravings along its circumference in a language she had no idea even existed. Suddenly, the sword came loose from the stone binding it to the earth, throwing Kristoff off balance. As quickly as it had started, the show of flashing lights and rumbling stopped.
Kristoff heaved a sigh and sat up, staring down at the sword in his hands. It was a golden bladed sword with a white glowing jewel at the pommel. It had a slight recurve to it as well. While it didn't have a curve as large as a Talwar, it also wasn't as straight as a curved Katana either. If anything, it struck a rather odd balance between cutting and slicing abilities.
"Kristoff! Are you okay?" Anna ran over to him, concerned that he may be hurt.
"I'm fine," Kristoff waved her away with a kind smile. He was slightly breathless.
Alex walked over to him to congratulate him.
"You know, you're not off the hook with me yet!" Kristoff said, sternly looking at Alex.
"Oh no worries! I wasn't intending to avoid that one anyway," Alex smiled.
Kristoff gave a crooked smile and held out the sword to Alex who chuckled and moved away from it.
"You know for someone like me, that sword is no less than what a holy sword to a demon is," Alex said with a smile throwing everyone off with his analogy.
"What does that mean?" Anna asked, frowning.
"Nothing too much. It's just my way of saying that Kristoff should keep the sword," Alex said.
"Me? What? Why?" Kristoff asked bewildered.
"You're the only one here who doesn't have a special unbreakable weapon," Alex pointed out laughing.
"Seriously?" Olaf said, putting up an unamused face with Agnarr and Iduna standing right beside him.
"Oh don't worry you two, I might just have a few good weapons you can use as well," Alex smiled and turned away from Agnarr and Iduna's surprised faces.
Alex turned to find Elsa looking straight into his eyes. For a moment, the ground beneath his feet suddenly disappeared as the ocean blue eyes filled the space, seeing through almost all of his barriers and lies. He was sure that she had been silent all that time not because she didn't know what exactly was going on, but because she had figured out almost everything that Alex had been hiding from them.
'So that was how it felt when he did that to other people too, huh?' Alex wondered, thinking back to Elsa's soul penetrating gaze.
What he said before wasn't a lie in a bit. He truly had no idea what his fate would be if he were to touch the sword of light and happiness while he himself was shrouded in the darkest of places. The true Alex wasn't the one standing among his family. The true Alex was a monster. A beast of unimaginable power, hate and anger flowing through his very blood. Those kinds of dark emotions did not belong with the Revolute which was the sword of hope and joy. The other part about Kristoff keeping the blade, was real. He couldn't possibly think up of a person better suited for the sword than the king of Arendelle, Kristoff himself.
I hope this chapter doesn't feel like forced humor or OOC interactions. I tried to make it as fluffy as I could while still trying to maintain a fairly serious mood, but as you might have guessed by now, I'm not really into writing for cheerful stuff. If it does feel that way, please say so and I'll see if I can somehow improve it. Cheers people and have a good year!