Only when the light from the torches no longer warmed her skin did the steel of moments past melt into a puddle of molten goo which then settled in the pit of her stomach, churning her innards with anxiety. Elsa gingerly pressed her hand against her abdomen as if to settle the sea of lava she felt sloshing within.

What was going on with her? This trepidation she felt boggled her and confused. She was only to meet a boy; nothing to worry herself overmuch.

But she did worry overmuch.

'Such a curious word overmuch. It's like saying much over but backwards and spelt as one word instead of two. It's more efficient in a way, but then it beggars the question, why use much over at all then? Wouldn't it be much simpler to simply- oh no,' She groaned to herself as her hands went to massaged her temples, 'I'm doing it again, aren't I?'

If it wasn't obvious already, Elsa tended to let her mind run away from her whenever she felt nervous.

Oh, curse her social skills, her confidence and lack thereof when faced with the gruffer of the genders! At that moment she realized that, aside from Kristoff and the male delegates she was so used to speaking with, had she never really met with a boy her age to simply... be. As is the demands of her birthright. See now where that got her, awkward as all hell.

'I wonder what it would've been like if I were never to have become queen? What would I be doing? Oh! What if I were a baker? I would wake up early every morning to ready the dough and warm the oven — Mmm, so cosy. Ah, and cakes! All I'll ever bake are cakes, chocolate ones. How Anna would love that! Hehe-' "Oof!"

She rubbed her poor nose and chided herself. She really ought to be more attentive. How many times today had she bumped into somethi-

Her eyes lifted and it was him... well, his back, but still. Suddenly, all her previous musings were replaced by a thick white slate of nothing, her mind, literally, drawing a blank.

You see? Awkward.

He breathed in slow, steady, superfluously; the expanding of his lungs more a way to keep the time than to keep him alive. Immortal. Decades past and decades more to come, he felt not an iota of happiness with the prospect. Why would he when living no longer felt like being alive? Then, suddenly, stimuli.

He and the moon had been engaging in one of their many heated discussions — not — when he felt her enter the clearing. He did not know how, but he did. He felt her every step; felt every breath she took into her lungs so keenly as if they were his own. For a moment he had to remind himself that he didn't breathe as humans do.

He did not turn; did not avert his gaze. Instead, he let her walk until...

"—Oof!"

*Then* he turned, and he was a glacier; calm, cool, and indifferent. He fixed an unimpressed look on the young queen, "You like walking into me, don't you?"

With eyes as big as hers, Elsa surprised herself with how long she had stared. It was a good few seconds before she caught herself and let out the most uncomfortable sounding laugh he had probably ever heard, "Ah- hahahahaha, yeah." Her eyes bulged and threatened to pop out of her skull, "I-uh-mean NO!" Elsa quickly stepped back, realizing how she could feel his breath and that she was probably standing too close. "No, I do *not* like walking into you!" Wincing at how harsh that sounded, she (*probably* too firmly) amended, "I mean, n-not that there's anything wrong with you! You're fine, more than fine! Guh- It was just rather dark, y-you see, and-and- Ugh. My apologies, good sir; I am *not* myself today. I was simply..." In her mad scramble for smart-sounding words, she made the terrible mistake of looking straight into his eyes. Her voice cut short; the breath in her lungs, stolen. Forget sounding smart, she'd settle for words, *any* words! "I was... just..." She swallowed and hoped dearly it wasn't too audible. In her head, she whimpered 'mercy' as her own blue eyes flickered between the two cerulean galaxies, "...distracted... Um. Hi?"

Was it just her or did that come out breathier than she'd intended?

"Hey," he mockingly mimicked her breathlessness with the one word, and, by the crook of his finger, carelessly and unceremoniously shut her parted jaw by lifting her chin, "yourself."

Needless to say, she blushed red-bordering-purple like an overripe strawberry.

And then there was quiet, long and oppressive.

Now that she was right there standing in front of him, she couldn't speak. All the questions she had before and not a one to ask? 'Why is this so hard?!' The silence stretched and it looked like it had become too much for one of them at least.

He coughed loudly, effectively bringing a sledgehammer to the wall of unspoken words, "Anyway, I'm sure you have a *lot* of questions, but is it okay if I ask a few first?" He asked none too sarcastically.

"O-Of course. Please," she urged, while in her head, 'Stop stuttering, for the love of Pete!' she begged the muscle in her mouth.

"So, Elsa-"

Two women were warring inside Elsa just then, one that went, "He knows my name!" and the other, "Of course he knows your name. He was there when you introduced yourself to *everyone*! Control thy self, goodness!" And Elsa was doing an excellent job muzzling these two women when she hmm-ed, letting him know (rather coolly, she might add) that, yes, that is my name, and it sounds lovely on your lips.

Not that last part, of course.

"—you want to fix the forest, is that right?"

"Yes. Yes, I do"

"You want," He sat on a tree stump, groaning as if he had been standing for quite a while, which was a yes, "to find out the truth of what happened here *years* before you were even born?"

All her fanciful ruminations ground to a halt when his tone gave her pause. She knew well what that sound was; she'd heard it plenty of times in her years of rule whenever she had to speak with someone decades older than herself, someone who spoke scepticism shaped by experience rather than fear. But he was so young, though, so how? "Yes." She said, but she sounded like she was asking rather than telling.

"And what makes you think that others haven't already tried?"

She hadn't thought of that, "I-"

"—Others older, wiser, having more conviction than yourself; people who have families waiting outside that wall?" He gestured south with a dismissive nod, "What makes you so vain that you believe you can do what they can not?"

Faced again with the realities of her endeavour, Elsa was rendered mute. What had she been doing all this time? Elsa had gone to that place for one thing, and one thing only: the salvation of her people, not go chasing after answers to her own existential quandaries. And had she been taking her mission seriously? No plan, no direction; what, did she expect to simply follow her gut's flights of fancy and expect everything would be fine and dandy like a grossly naive children's bedtime story? The weight of her guilt was a stone placed on her chest, and her countenance fell towards it. What *did* she have that made her think that she could do this?

"I asked you a question, *queen* Elsa."

Her name didn't sound so lovely on his lips anymore.

Scouring within herself an adequate response yet finding none, Elsa was hesitant just to raise her head. But raise it, she did, and what greeted her was a stare filled with a sort of pained anger, one that did not feel like it was for her (or at least, not all of it), but instead, reserved for someone else.

That did not stop her from feeling small, however, like a scolded child rather than a queen. She, Elsa, was reeling, and it had been a while since the last time anyone had made her feel like that. There were no words...

...but there was action.

Palm facing upwards, Elsa closed her eyes as she set her hand before her. She peered inside herself and sought out the light of her power, and when she had found it, tore just a sliver enough for her purpose. Every time, she always thought the light would burn her, but no; it was always cold, familiar, comforting. She took an image from the index of her mind and then-

"I have this."

—and willed it into being.

She wasn't exactly expecting a reaction, but everyone who had ever witnessed her power always had that sort of childlike wonder shining in their eyes. His were like cobalt steel that did not yield, did not waver. There was that slight hint of — she wasn't sure — longing there, perhaps, but that was it. Her hopes deflated before the words even left his mouth.

"And you think that *that* makes you special?"

That sentence, that one sentence *floored* Elsa; took her down to her very foundations. To have lived her life having her powers dictate a large portion, if not the entire length of it, then to hear someone say... such words, how was she even to react?

Her ice could freeze a kingdom, creat castles at a whim, bring winters fury if she so wished it, and here was a man who did not even blink in face of such things.

What *did* she have when the one thing she thought defined her meant nothing?

"I have nothing else..." Again, her eyes found her boots as her whisper hung aloft, helpless in the breeze.

A beat of silence for the moment passed until a sound so carefree, so out of place in the heavy atmosphere feathered over the lobes of her ears.

"I could work with that."

If words could shrug.

Elsa's head snapped back up at the utterly befuddling man, "W-What?"

"You're heading to Ahtohallan, right?"

"Yes, but how did you-"

"The trees told me. Anyway. I'm guessing you don't know how to get there." He did not even wait for her to reply, "Well, lucky you, I do, and I'll take you there on one condition."

Elsa felt nervous again, but this time different; like it was a gift offered to her the moment she needed it most. It was her chance to redeem herself.

And she would not fail whatever the condition may be, "And that condition is?"

She asked and he grinned at how, for the first time since he had met her, she spoke with a confidence that he almost mistook for a challenge. He stepped in close, and she didn't even flinch when he loomed over her, "You show me what *Elsa Briar Ádelair* has got."

You know how, in the movie, Elsa is portrayed as this graceful goddess that just so happened to have these quirky, cute, human moments? Even when she's scared, it feels like she' always in control of the situation. Well, you ain't getting that here, folks.

Here it's the opposite. Elsa is a human being and all that it implies. Which means, forget about that Elsa that could freakin' sprint across water, again and again, climb coral reefs, wrestle a freakin' water horse into submission when realistically she wouldn't even have that kind of bodily strength given her line of work.

Here it is, I'm gonna say it. I didn't like Frozen 2. (Le gasp!) I hate how the movie felt rushed; how everything felt stuck together like some horrendous piece of papier-mâché; how the crisis didn't feel like a crisis and didn't create in me a sense of urgency; how everything, not excluding story progression, was triggered deus ex machina; how questions like "where did Elsa's powers come from" were answered in the laziest, most unimaginative, most disjointed way. (You're telling me that Elsa's the fifth spirit? Okay, and this explains her ice powers... how? Barf. I'm guessing she could control all 4 elements and take away your bending powers too, right?)

Ugh, and the plot. They just had to go, HAD TO GO with the "finding yourself" route (could not, for the life of me, say that without a squeaky voice). Leave that shtick to Kung Fu Panda, thank you very much.

I mean, can I please get a Disney movie that does not have to have a moral of the story so scuffed up it makes my 5 year old pair of boots look brand new, but instead have substantial plot and character development beyond the, "Ooo, twist villain" weak sauce? Is that so much to ask, Disney?

"But Elsa did develop" a-hyuck. Shut thine mouth, plebian! What did Elsa from Frozen 2 have that the Elsa for the past few years did not already?

They could have gone so many ways with this, and yet chose the meh-good-enough. There are literally hundreds of better fanfiction than what they went with.

Frozen 2, unlike the first one, was a forgettable movie that the only redeeming thing about it was Kristoff's awesome, AWESOME solo.

Pardon, I do seem to have digressed. Mind not the rant. That's just me trying to find things to like about this movie after watching it for five times and realising that the count was actually dwindling the more I watched it.

Anywho, your thoughts?

Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I'll have you know that I read through them every time I get stuck, for inspiration. It's because of you that I'm able to put this out now despite being busy with real-world stuff. So cheers to you me good mates!