Chapter 2: Queen and Guardian

"—Elsa! Who are you talking to?" Her shout finally made Elsa pay her attention, and she could see confusion and a bit of embarrassment in her eyes.

"What do you mean 'who am I talking to', Anna, don't be rude," she reprimanded before turning back towards the handsome gentleman. Wait, handsome? With a sheepish smile, she ignored the flush she was sure her face was now sporting, "I'm sorry about her; my sister's actually quite friendl- eep!"

With a bit more force than she intended, Anna grabbed Elsa's shoulders and turned her towards herself, "Elsa," her blue eyes stared intently into her sister's searching them for anything untoward and finding none, "there's no one there."

"W-What?" Her head jerked back as she looked behind her, and surely there still stood the man with silver hair, "What are you talking about? Of course, there is! Do you not see him?" Her voice laughed thinking it was a joke but turned nervous when she saw Anna's eyes flicker to the spot over her shoulder where she knew the stranger to be yet returned to her with an even more concerned expression. She looked at the others and saw them do the same. A cold pit fell into her stomach, "You don't see him…" She concluded in a whisper.

"Elsa-" She couldn't finish before her sister whirled around and escaped her grasp.

"Who are you?" No, the better question yet was, "*What* are you?" She stepped closer, but still, the man stared at her as if *she* were the mystery. She was sure that her face mirrored the expression. Why could she see him when the others could not? First the singing voice, and now this; was she going insane? She reached out slowly, oh so slowly, to touch his face…

Before he stopped her when his hand shot up to grab her wrist. She gasped in surprise at the firm grip, and for some odd reason, so did he.

He recovered from the shock way quicker than she did, "I could ask you the same thing."

His voice, she had never heard such a voice. Tenor, it was deep, gravelly, ancient, but at the same time, young, and gentle in a secretive, almost protective way. It shook her to her very bones, not unlike thunder would the ground. It was a moment before she found her voice again, "I-I am queen Elsa of Arendelle-"

Arendelle, the very word made him scowl, "—What are you doing in *my* forest?"

"Your?" Elsa could feel the rising tension, and before it got out of hand, the queen in her tried to defuse the situation as she normally would her queendom's many disputes, "No, I was just-"

But he didn't let her, "—Get out…" The man said explicitly as he turned to take his leave.

"What?" She asked in a bewildered voice.

"I said…" He suddenly spun on his heel before mightily slamming the end of his staff into the ground making the leaves flee from him as the wind picked up again, "GET. OUT!"

She and her entire party covered their faces from the wind that suddenly buffeted them, all the while, in her head raged a different kind of tempest. She saw the leaves, saw how they swirled around, but it was not chaos. They moved as if caught in a stew that followed the ladle spun by- her eyes, though squinted, landed on the white-haired man in astonished realization, and theirs locked in a heated stare; his full of malice, and hers full of wonder and desperate questions.

He spoke, but somehow the wind did not swallow up his voice. In fact, he looked unaffected by it all, his windswept hair barely being windswept, "Leave the way you came, and *never* come back. I won't ask a second time."

There was no stopping him from leaving. Though Elsa tried to, she could barely hear her own voice above the furious gale. But then, like blowing out a candle, it all stopped, leaving them all breathless.

How it was so loud just moments ago then, at the drop of a hat, being quieter than church service on a Wednesday was more than just a little spooky, and Anna made sure to say so, "What in the ever-loving cocoa was that?! First, you were talking to yourself," Anna began exaggerating with her arms, "then all of a sudden, WHOOSH! Shk shk shk, ahhh! Ow, a leaf flew into my eye! And then… nothing."

Anna's head turned slowly towards her sister, "Elsa… what was that? Was that you? That was you right?" She asked nervously.

Elsa turned to return her wide-eyed and disbelieving expression, "It wasn't."

"Oooh boy, here we go," Kristoff groaned at the familiar sense of trepidation he felt from their last adventure.

"Well, *obviously* it was the guy with the white hair.

Everyone turned to look several shades of flabbergasted at Olaf.

"What?" He smiled cluelessly as ever.

Elsa knelt down and grabbed Olaf's shoulders, or, at least, what substituted as his shoulders, "You saw him? You saw the white-haired man?"

"Uh, yi-eah," Olaf answered, but was starting to wonder why that was exactly news to anyone, "why? I don't get it.

So she wasn't going crazy! "Why didn't you say anything earlier?!"

"Well, I thought it was a rhetorical question. Not that I know what rhetorical means, mind you, but didn't *you* guys see'im?"

Anna and Kristoff looked at each other before shaking their heads.

"Huh," Olaf was stumped, "there's a fun fact for ya."

"I need to find him," Elsa, filled with a sudden determination, straightened up and began walking into the woods. "I have questions that need answering."