Wow, the amount of trust you guys have on this humble writer lol.
I am trying to get this fic differently from what occurred in F2, but for now we mostly have to stick to the movie to get them where they needed.
"Did you know that water has memory?"
The farther they were from Arendelle the more she had beginning to question whether her choice in travel's companion was truly the right thing to do. The ice harvester had urged Sven to pull them in such speed that the air that blew against the skin of her face was a little too harsh for her to like -especially at that one sharp turn where her side was facing right at the edge of a cliff, and since it was a wagon more than a carriage it had no roof nor walls to protect them. But it seemed that she was the only one that faced discomfort with the whole experience.
Anna was laughing, rather gleefully, from the overall thrill that she was in, turquoise eyes wide as she looked over the view that they were passing, the nature outside their kingdom that they had never seen before. Hans sat by Kristoff's side, at the front, conversing with the blonde man over things that she could not fully understand due to Olaf's decision of starting a game of trivia. Honestly, she didn't even know where he had gotten all of those facts that he was sharing with them, from ones she could comprehend to ones that was almost impossible to believe.
"True fact. It's disputed by many, but it's true."
Even Wilhelm seemed to enjoy the trip, thankfully, as he sat on her lap, held securely by her arm as her free hand waved through the air, creating harmless ice magic to keep him occupied. If he had been fussy then she truly could not have survived this, as a toddler crying throughout a journey that took who-knows-how-long would give her serious headache. His hand reached forward, and she dismissed of the ice just as he held her hand, fingers curling around her much bigger one. Her hand seemed to have fascinate him, as he brought it closer to inspect, and while he held onto it with one hand the other had the job to run his own finger against her palm.
"Mama." His head perked up, turned until he could look up at her, who smiled down at him over how adorable he had looked, with his lips parting and eyes wide and clear, the tiniest of teeth had beginning to show on both his upper and lower gum when the corners of his mouth tugged into a wide smile, and while the teething process had drove the boy to be far more difficult due to how uncomfortable he was, the sight had only had her heart melted. "Mama!"
No matter how more than a year had passed since Wilhelm had been born, a part of her still could not believe that she had the ability to create such wonderful human being that was sitting on her lap right now, far more beautiful and magnificent than anything that she had ever laid her eyes on, with such big heart and that adorable face that could rendered anyone into a series of cooing. And he was hers, he was her son, her whole world, and he looked at her with such adoration that she never thought she deserved.
"Did you know gorillas burp when they're happy?"
She was so close in taking her words back.
Her magic could only keep Wilhelm's distracted for so long, as no matter how fascinated he was with ice and snow, watching it repetitively shown at him had becoming rather boring even for the toddler. He had been switching seats too as to give him a change of scenario and for his mother to stretch her tired muscles. When Anna held him, she told him of stories that she read throughout her childhood, of the portraits in the gallery that she often conversed to. When Hans had his turn, he pointed to the nature that passed through them, naming the trees and sharing his knowledge over things from his experience as an Admiral that had sailed to various kingdoms.
But even that could not satisfy the boy enough, as he had whined and demanded for her to take him back, just as she was finishing in stretching her legs from the pins and needles she was experiencing from the large amount of sitting. They had stopped a couple of times, to eat and to let Sven rest, but mostly they had on the go as they wished to not waste precious time, knowing that the people of Arendelle waited for them back home.
The moment he was back in her lap, the first thing he had grabbed was the hem of her jacket, tugging against it as he babbles in irritation. This gesture, she knew far too well.
"Turn around, boys," the two men had sat sideways as to see what the small commotion at the back had been about, and when they were given a stern look from the Queen, both had complied by turning their attentions back to the road ahead. But the snowman remained sitting there, facing her expectantly, curious. "Olaf, that includes you."
"Oh, okay."
"It's not like I've never seen every part of you, darling." The auburn-haired Prince commented, which had the man sitting beside him choking from the bold words he had used and the Princess struggling desperately not to laugh. With the heat climbing up her cheeks as she held her nursing son against her chest, she had conjured a snowball with her free hand, launching it straight toward the back of her husband's head, which sent him stumbling from the force and the sudden coldness. "Alright, I'm sorry! I was just saying."
Anna's laugh had only broken then, loud and clear, without an ounce of self-control as she found the brief exchange of her older sister and her brother in-law to be the most fun she could possibly get on the trip. Olaf, on the other hand, had only questioned why it had happened in the first place, as he had no understanding of how Hans' words had been so improper to express in public.
"Did you know sleeping quietly on long journeys prevents insanity?"
The sun had set long ago, blanketing them in the darkness of the night with only the lantern that Kristoff that lit up as their source of light. They were exhausted and jokes and laughter had died down hours ago, at least from them. The snowman was still going strong with his game, even when they had enough trivia for each already, the only change that he did was to lower down his voice due to the fact that Wilhelm had slept against his mother's chest and she had repeatedly told each one of them not to make so much noise, other than that it was all the same.
But Olaf's laughter came as soon as Kristoff had voiced his own version of trivia that had represent the others on the wagon, and the sudden burst had the toddler squirming in his sleep, driving her into covering his ears with her hands while she hissed the snowman's name sharply as a warning.
"Yeah, that's not true."
A chorus of agreement to the ice harvester's words were then heard, even Hans who had moved to the back in exchange of Anna sitting at the front had nodded in agreement. His hand had been caressing her arm as she leaned against his chest, acting as her makeshift pillow after she had complained that her body was aching.
"Well, that was unanimous. But I will look it up when we get home."
Home. They had not even reached the Enchanted Forest yet and already she was missing home, the warmth and comfort that the castle bring, the safety that the walls provided for her family, the plush bed and the warm water she bathed in. Tugging up her mother's scarf until it covered more of Wilhelm's body as he slept, she had let out a small sigh. If she had not awoken the spirits then none of this would have happened, her poor son would be sleeping comfortably in his own nursery instead of slumping against her chest like this, exposed to the outside world for such long duration.
"Get some sleep, Elsa."
"-No, I'm not saying you're wrong, or crazy."
A few hours of peaceful sleep, that was all she needed, that was all she wished for, without much of a disturbance or a voice vocalizing in her ears that was calling for her no matter how hard she had tried to dismiss of it. She had successfully shut her eyes, letting her body relaxed against her husband's as she only half-minded the sensation of his warm hands running up and down across her arm with the weight of her son across her chest as he brought her deeper into slumber until she could no longer be aware of her surrounding as it faded into the back of her mind.
"I'm saying that-"
But the voice came back, haunting her even when she was deep in her own dream, and the whimper coming from her son was all it takes to pull her back into the reality as she sat up. Wilhelm was wide awake by now, though from his face she knew he was not pleased with being rudely woken up, looking up at her with knitted brows before he turned to look ahead, to where the voice had come from.
"Kristoff, stop. Please." She didn't even have the slightest idea as to what he and her sister was talking about at the front while she had slept with the others, only seeing out of the corner of her eye that Olaf was too finally asleep, head resting against her husband's boots. Whatever it was, her telling him to stop had been deemed to be a good idea even by the blonde man himself. "I hear it, I hear the voice."
"You do?" Moving to jump off the still going wagon after she had placed Wilhelm down and off her lap, she did not even wait for Kristoff to pull on Sven's reins to bring them into a stop as she took her son out of the wagon as well, only giving a quick nod at her sister's direction as she carried the auburn-haired young Prince ahead with her. "Hans, Olaf, wake up!"
The sight before her was beautiful.
A thick wall of mist stood before them, high enough that she could not even see the very top of it, blending into the blue sky. It stretched as far as the eye could see, like a never-ending boundary that separated the Enchanted Forest from the rest of the world. Wilhelm's hand reached out, right toward the mist, as he looked up at her. The voice came from there, he was telling her to go.
And she did.
Stopping right before it, a chill ran down her spine at how powerful the mist had felt, magic hanging thick in the atmosphere. She had never felt such sensation before, even the tickling feeling that she often felt at the tips of her fingers whenever her magic swirled just under her skin was nothing like this.
Kristoff, who had joined her with the rest, had stepped forward, enchanted by the sight just like she, though the moment his body had made contact with the mist, he was met with some sort of a resistance that forced him stumbling backward.
No one can get in, and no one has since come out.
It was what her Father had told her about the mist that covered the Enchanted Forest, that it forced whoever attempted to step into it out, and that people inside could never come out, stuck under the powerful spell that has blanketed the forest the moment the spirits were angered. But the voice calling for her came from the other side of it, from inside, demanding her to come.
"Elsa," Hans' hands come to take their son from her embrace, holding him for her instead as he took her hand in his, squeezing. "This doesn't feel right."
But it did. For her, it did.
Tugging him along, she had stepped forward, one free hand raised in front of her, inhaling a deep breath as she moved to touch the mist. And it parted for her, though not completely, but there was some sort of a reaction when her skin had made contact with the air that brushed gently against her palm, revealing the four stones standing tall.
Air, fire, water, and earth.
They were in the right place.
Anna stepped forward until she stood right at her older sister's side, hand placed on her shoulder. "Promise me, we do this together, okay?" and she had turned to look at the strawberry blonde-haired Princess, at her hand that rested in a comforting and encouraging gesture, and she had nodded, promising that they would. She wouldn't push them away.
Sven had made a nervous sound when they walked through the mist, perhaps spooked at the lack of view that it allowed them to see as they were surrounded from all sides, only parting whenever she moved forward.
"Did you know that an Enchanted Forest is a place of transformation?" Olaf piped in, as he walked between both sisters while she had only held onto her husband's hand tighter. "I have no idea what that means, but I can't wait to see what it's going to do to each one of us." That part did nothing but to picked her heartrate as she glanced at both Hans and Anna, each having the similar nervous look on their faces. What kind of transformation that they would go through now that they were walking straight into such unknown place? What would it mean for them, for their relationship with each other? For Wilhelm, who barely understood the whole situation and yet having himself being brought along.
An invisible force had suddenly pushed them forward, not enough to make them fall but enough to make them pick on their paces as they found themselves suddenly moving so much quicker toward the end of the long tunnel. Anna had protested, with the saying that there should not be any sort of pushing, though she knew it was fruitless as there was no actual form that they could protested to.
It disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. The moment that they found themselves standing in the forest, the force was simply… gone. Turning around, she had shot a blast of magic into the mist, a test for what it could do, and yet it had simply been bounced back, shooting back to her, barely missing Hans' shoulder as the man had moved right in time to keep their son out of the projectile's path.
"Careful, Elsa!"
"We're locked in…" Anna had stated the obvious, just after she had tried her own hands in trying to go back through, finding the similar force blocking her way like it had blocked Kristoff earlier. "Probably should have seen that one coming."
After making sure that they truly could not return the way that they had come, it was only then that she had turned around and realized the one thing none of them had noticed before. "This forest is beautiful." The sound of nature was the only thing that they could heard, peaceful and quiet without the busy noises of people that they were used in hearing back in Arendelle. The trees stood tall and solid with leaves that had changed into the shades of autumn.
"Papa, pretty!" Wilhelm had leaned forward in his father's hold, trying to reach for one particular tree, wanting to touch it. Hans had complied, of course, carrying his son toward what had caught his eyes, chuckling when the boy's curious hands had run across the surface of it, gaze locked in awe.
"Elsa!" her head had whipped around the moment her sister's voice called for her, watching as the Princess came running down a low hill, dried leaves crunching under her boots, taking her hands in hers as she came to stand before her, breath coming in short pants from her earlier jog. "There you are! You okay?"
But it had been her who had went ahead herself, and she had seen Kristoff and Sven following close behind thus why she had not worried much, and it was rather surprising that she was the one that had came back with worry in her tone, checking in with her. "I'm fine."
"Okay, good." She had a small relieved smile across her face, if only for a moment as she had taken it upon herself to look around, eyes casted downwards as frown beginning to replace her expression. "Where's Olaf?"
He was supposed to be there, standing by her side, following her around like he often does. But now that Anna had mentioned it, she had only realized that the snowman was no where to be seen. "Hans," calling out for her husband, she had made him looked over his shoulder as he rose from his kneeling position, as Wilhelm may have seen something that interested him on the ground. "Have you seen Olaf?"
"I thought he was with you."