"Where are we going, Doctor?" Elsa whispered as she walked in front of the nervous guards.
"Somewhere where we can learn more about what happened."
"Do you know where we are exactly?"
"I have a hunch. Don't you?"
"I… don't know" she lied hesitantly.
Another man appeared, walking the corridor toward them. He also wore tattered furs, but was much older, with white hair and moustache. He slid aside to let them pass, looking fixedly at Elsa as they went by.
"You seem to be making quite an impression here" the Doctor whispered.
Elsa remained silent as they walked along the dark corridors, the guards in tow.
"How will Anna find us?" she suddenly asked.
"Oh, she will" the Doctor said, waving his hand. "Anyway, she probably chose to stay safely in the TARDIS, don't you think?"
"I'm… not sure. She… likes to move around a lot."
"Oh, the TARDIS is quite spacious, as you've seen. Plenty of places to move around. And swim. Does she know how to swim? There is a swimming pool. And a library. Does she know how to read?"
"Excuse me, sir?" It was one of the guards walking behind them. He pointed to a corridor branching from the gallery where they had been walking. As they turned to look at him, Elsa noticed the older man they had passed by was now also following them. "The wood is stacked over there."
"I'm sure it is" the Doctor said, walking on, ignoring the corridor.
"Sir!"
The older man walked up to them.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I have to ask you who this young woman is?"
"That's interesting" the Doctor said, facing him. "Why are you so interested in her?"
"Where are you from, Sir?"
"Away. What is this place?"
The man looked shocked.
"How can you not… how did you get here?"
"Very recently."
The man looked dubiously at the Doctor for some seconds. Then he gestured at the guards.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but we have to make sure of who you are." He glanced nervously at Elsa. "We can't take risks..."
Elsa had been looking fixedly at a relatively well kept tapestry on the wall. It happened to be illuminated by a nearby torch, and the motifs could still be easily made out. She was desperately hoping that they were common enough to not be a definite proof of their current location. Maybe they were on a different planet after all… one where people used crocus for decoration and castle layouts were very similar to those of her own?
She was yanked out of her frightened musings by a hand suddenly gripping her shoulder.
"Sorry, Madam. You must come with us now…"
Elsa barely suppressed a little yelp and jumped back, desperately concentrating on remaining calm.
"We are not going anywhere!" the Doctor bellowed.
But the older man ignored him. He was looking at the frost that had formed on his glove where he had touched Elsa's shoulder. He looked at her, his face slowly becoming a mask of horror. Elsa stepped closer to the Doctor, trying to thaw the ice she knew had been forming at her feet.
The man backed up slowly, pointing at her.
"It's her!" he shouted suddenly. "It's the Snow Queen! Stop her!"
Elsa saw the men behind him drawing their swords. The Doctor turned to her.
"Here's an important rule I want you to remember" he said quickly. "When I say run, you run. Run!"
He seized her hand as he yanked the torch from the wall and threw it on the floor in front of the men before running away, pulling Elsa behind him.
Anna ambled along the frozen corridors. She had now recognised where she was supposed to be in the castle. She occasionally found her way blocked by collapsed walls or a heap of ice, but she could still find her way just as surely as she did when the castle was… normal.
She kept wondering what had happened. Her first thought was that something or someone had flash-freezed the kingdom while they were in the TARDIS, and she hoped her sister was not responsible. But there was something else. The Doctor had said that the TARDIS had travelled in the future, no matter how incredible this sounded, and indeed everything looked… old. Furnitures were broken. Tapestries were tattered and ripped from the walls. She had seen first-hand what an unexpectedly fierce winter could do to the castle; this was way worse.
She stopped as she entered a new corridor. She knew that one very well. It was one of the places in the castle that had suffered the worst from the weather during Elsa's magical winter. The ice had been thick enough to pierce a hole in the wall. Anna had done her best to supervise the repairs herself, in an attempt to somewhat alleviate the painful memory of this episode to her sister, even though she perfectly knew that Elsa had personally funded all repairs needed by the winter she had cast on the country.
The hole had been finally fixed two months ago. Anna remembered visiting it with Elsa. But now the hole was here again, gaping as widely as ever. In fact, there was no trace of the repairs that she had seen being added to it over the last year. Anna ran her finger on the stone. It was ice cold, she could feel it through her mittens. No one had touched the masonry since the wall had collapsed.
Elsa was doing her best to keep up with the Doctor. Once again, she noted that heels and a gown were not particularly suited to running from guards.
"Can't you run faster?" the Doctor shouted. "They are going to catch us!"
The guards had been delayed by the torch the Doctor had thrown in their path, but they were now gaining ground fast. There were some shouts elsewhere in the castle.
"I was not planning on being chased by guards today!" Elsa shouted in retort.
"Can't you do some ice magic to delay them?"
"I don't want to hurt anyone!" Elsa snarled.
"Good for you!" the Doctor shouted back. "Maybe you should tell them about it!"
A door opened down on the corridor and two men rushed out of it, swords raised. The Doctor grabbed Elsa's hand and turned sharply in a branching gallery.
"And speeding us up? That would not hurt anyone!"
Elsa tried to think, as well as quell the rising panic inside her.
"Do you know how to skate, Doctor?" she shouted eventually.
"I don't remember if I know!" he shouted back. "But I'm a fast learner!"
Elsa concentrated, which was not easy while running with people yelling behind them. She did her best to ignore the fear that was slowly creeping in her mind. If this really is Arendelle and if people hate me so much…
"Any time you want" the Doctor shouted, grabbing her hand again to help her keep up. "Unless you would like to chat with them!"
Elsa slammed her foot on the floor at her next step. Ice spread in front of them, filling the corridor. She looked down at the Doctor's boots and waved her free hand. Ice skates appeared under them just as he was about to slip. Shouts erupted behind them and she heard a sword clatter on the floor. I hope no one falls and get hurt.
The Doctor laughed as he picked up speed on his skates, as Elsa glided gracefully along him. They turned sharply at the end of the corridor. Elsa briefly glanced at the men in their pursuit attempting to cautiously make their way over the ice.
"Well done" the Doctor shouted. "By the way", he added cheerfully, "I don't think I know how to skate after all!"
The Doctor skidded to a halt after turning a few times over himself. Shouts were echoing all around them. The grey-haired man hopped in front of a door that opened on the side of the corridor. Elsa was looking around her, trying to recognise her surroundings. She was sure this part of the castle looked familiar.
"Can you remove these?" the Doctor asked, pointing at his skates, as he worked the sonic screwdriver on the lock of the door.
Elsa had to concentrate to make the ice disappear. She felt the fear and doubt spread into her mind again. Where is Anna? I need her.
The lock clicked. The Doctor grabbed Elsa's hand and whisked her inside, then slammed the door behind them. The sonic screwdriver whistled again and the lock clicked again.
"Doctor", Elsa panted. "Where are we? When are we?"
"In your castle, in the future" the Doctor answered curtly. "Hush" he intimated, pressing his ear to the door.
They heard shouts, muffled behind the wood, and people clomping cautiously over the frozen floor. They slowly receded in the distance.
"Around fifty years in your future" he resumed. "I was not entirely sure at first with this cold, but the air definitely smells like the end of the 19th century."
"We are still in Arendelle! What happened?"
"I don't know. Something altered the climate. Would you be able to do something like this?"
"I… did it. Once. Last year. Well…last year for me. But I reversed it. I made everything normal again!"
"Then maybe you had a relapse. Can you stop this cold now?"
Elsa looked at the Doctor, and suppressed a gasp. She felt her dread rise up by the second. She tried to think of Anna. The hope that her sister was safely in the incredible TARDIS, playing dress up or exploring it, calmed her somewhat. She concentrated.
She had tried once, during the winter, to thaw the snow that covered the country. She had managed to make some of the snow around the castle disappear all right, but it had felt hard, as if intruding into the normal order of seasons like that was fighting the whole of nature. She could freeze things without trouble, but thawing what was not her doing was much harder.
Elsa felt the ice around her, deeply set in the ground and the water, and the cold in the air. It was everywhere, permeating every stone of the castle. She suspected that it was spreading well beyond it. She thought of her sister, and tried to thaw it.
There was a little glittering sound as Elsa felt the air around her warm up. Silvery strands erupted from the walls around them as ice reverted back into magic…
Elsa recoiled as if struck. The cold reasserted itself violently, disobeying her. It did not feel like the nature resisting had; this was magic escaping her, as if she had not been in control any more.
Elsa wavered. The Doctor caught her awkwardly and steadied her.
"What happened?"
"I don't know… I can't… I can't control the cold. It's as if… I can't control my powers any more."
"Could it be that something stronger than you is controlling the cold?"
Elsa looked at the Doctor. Had she indeed felt her powers escaping her, or was it something else enforcing this cold?
"It's possible… But what could…"
"Hello? Who's there?"
The Time Lord and the Queen jumped. For the first time, they looked around them at the room where they had taken shelter. There was a large bed, near a fireplace where embers were glowing. Someone was moving from under the heavy covers. Elsa gasped and looked at the Doctor, then at the door.
"Is there someone here?" The voice wavered and cracked.
A shape sat up in the bed. In the gloom, Elsa could make out what looked like a tangled mass of white hair over a frail frame. The Doctor walked toward the bed.
"Hello" he said reassuringly. "Sorry to have woken you up. We were simply… visiting."
The person on the bed turned to the night stand and fiddled a little before lighting up a candle, then raised it toward the newcomers. Elsa looked at the room, trying to make out the details in the dim light of the candle.
"We were simply trying to find some information about this place" the Doctor kept on. "Could you tell us why..."
But the person on the bed ignored him, brandishing the candle in Elsa's direction.
"Elsa?!"
Anna was trudging slowly through the snow that covered the courtyard. She could still make out the buildings surrounding it under the white mounds, enough to trigger her memories. Less than a month ago, she had discovered Elsa's surprise birthday there, and hear Kristoff sing his love for her. And mere minutes ago, she had dragged Elsa there, to see the mysterious blue box, which she now knew to be called the TARDIS.
She had trouble believing this was the same place. Everything was covered in densely packed, frozen snow. Even during Elsa's accidental winter things had never been like that. Without the unmistakeable shape of the fjord and the mountains surrounding it, she could have sworn this was a place that simply looked like the Arendelle castle.
The princess walked slowly toward the ruined gate, passing by two mounds of snow and ice where the fountains had been. One of the large doors was still hanging from its hinges to the ruined archway, mainly held in place because of the ice. The other had disappeared, but may have been buried under the snow that crunched under Anna's feet.
She thoughtfully felt the fabric of the coat she had borrowed from the TARDIS, and dimly wondered what the material was. It was not much thicker than her own winter garments back home, wherever or whenever home was, but felt much warmer. The air felt incredibly colder than anything she had ever experienced, but she still felt comfortably warm.
The sight awaiting beyond the gate managed to make Anna shiver when the cold could not. It was eerily reminiscent of the view she was used to when exiting the castle, only with heaps of snow and ice replacing the buildings here and there. And an absolute lack of any living soul.
The princess crossed the bridge to the city and walked slowly through the snow-covered streets, unable to suppress a slight feeling of awe at the incredible spectacle. It was like walking in a snow covered landscape and trying to recognise the features you were used to. There was only this nagging question, at the back of her mind, that she desperately tried to ignore.
If I'm in the future, when did this happen? And how?
Of course, this was not really the question. Anna was doing her best to avoid even thinking the actual question. And wondering if she had really been going in the direction the Doctor and Elsa had taken. She should have joined them by now. On the other hand, she was drawn by these incredible landscapes as if they had been a heap of chocolate.
Anna realised she had reached what was probably the city main square. She could dimly distinguish the shapes of the various stalls lined up there, all of them abandoned and buried under snow. She vaguely wondered if Oaken's travelling sauna would be there somewhere. She could use some warm steam.
Raising her head, the princess realised that the big spike of ice towering above the square was actually the maypole that was erected there in celebration of the summer. She had missed the ceremony this year, as she had been tending to her ill sister. Everything around it was literally frozen in place.
Anna started as she thought recognising the remnants of decorations around the large square. They were covered in ice, but she could make out drapes and ribbons adorning the surrounding houses. They had not been there this summer.
The princess reached a mound of snow at the bottom of a house and attempted to climb it. She managed to reach the top at the third try and pulled at a frozen ribbon, which snapped neatly, making her lose her balance and slide at the bottom of the mound. Anna got up slowly, massaging her backside, and looked at the ribbon. The patterns were unmistakable under the layer of ice: this was the royal emblem of Arendelle, and it was used as a decoration only when celebrating a royal event, such as a birth. Or a coronation.
Anna looked up toward the north at the mountains towering over the city. For the first time, she noticed the dark clouds topping them.
A shout made her jump. Turning, she discovered a sled slowly making its way through the snow covered streets. Her heart jumped as she saw that the driver wore the traditional garment of ice harvesters, but she quickly realised it was not Kristoff. The man was middle-aged with grey hair and a beard. His sled was much larger than Kristoff's, requiring four reindeer to pull it. It was loaded with various packages, and a few people huddled among them.
Anna calmed down, almost relieved that Kristoff was not to be found in this incomprehensible and disquieting place. It helped make it feel a little more like a bad dream. Maybe she was dreaming this, and the Doctor had never come back to take them in his magic TARDIS.
The driver of the sled had seen her and was now heading toward her, slowing his sled down.
"Do you need help?" he called.
Anna walked hesitantly up to the sled. The driver pulled the reins. She realised his clothes were much thicker than whatever she had seen Kristoff wear. The people in the sled were huddled together at the back under heavy blankets.
"You should not stay out there too long" the man said. "The cold will get you much faster than you think."
"I was only exploring a bit" Anna answered spontaneously. "And my coat is warmer than it looks."
The man looked at her in surprise.
"Exploring? Where do you come from?"
"The castle. I just arrived, actually. Has it been like that for a long time?"
"You mean… you come from the castle or you just arrived at the castle?"
"I just arrived at the castle. Before that I was in the… is this Arendelle?"
The man looked at her with incredulous eyes.
"You are confused" he said eventually. "Climb up, I'll take you to the castle."
Anna looked around.
"That's very kind of you, but I would have loved to explore a bit more…"
There was a distant howl. Anna shivered. This reminded her of her encounter with the wolves on Kristoff's sled.
"But the castle is fine. Let's go back to the castle!"
The driver shifted on his seat to leave her a place at his side. The sled ponderously moved on as the four reindeers picked up their pace.
A roar echoed in the distance. That one was not a wolf howl. Anna searched her memory. It had almost sounded like…
"What was that?" she asked to the driver.
The man looked at her again.
"You really do know nothing of this country, do you?"
"It is Arendelle, right?"
"Yes it is. Or maybe I should say was." He shrugged. "How exactly did you arrive there?"
"Well it's… complicated. I was in a… box. We arrived in the middle of the castle, and I went exploring… Oh no, where are Elsa and the Doctor now?"
Another wolfish howl echoed in the distance. This one was cut short by a yelp of pain, followed by another strange roar.
"The Ice Beasts are hunting today" the driver said, urging his reindeer forward. The sled was now slowly progressing along the bridge to the castle. There were big gaps in it that caused no trouble to someone on foot, but forced a carriage to zigzag to avoid them. "I hope no one will be out tonight."
"Excuse me?"
Anna turned to meet the gaze of the passengers. The one who had talked was a dark-haired woman, older than her by a few years. Her two companions were a short, stocky man, completely wrapped up in his winter garments, and a woman with a very heavy veil covering her face.
"Oh, hello" Anna said genially. "Is it comfortable in the back?"
"Yes, thank you" the woman answered. "I'm sorry to be intruding but… did you say you arrived here in a box with a man called the Doctor?"
Elsa slowly walked up to the bed. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the light of the candle, and she was slowly making out the face of the old woman. There was something undoubtedly familiar about it.
"Yes, I'm Elsa. Who are…"
The face of the old woman lit up with a smile.
"Elsa! You came back!"
Elsa gasped. Faces can change with time, gain wrinkles and spots, the hair can turn white, the eyes can stop seeing – one of the woman's eyes, Elsa saw, was a pearly blue-white. But the smile does not. The one that was now spreading over the woman's face, making her remaining eye sparkle, was all too familiar to her. This happy, hopeful smile, as if the person smiling firmly believed that everything was going to be all right and that anything bad was only a simple misunderstanding that would soon be cleared up…
"You remained young!" the woman said, looking intently at Elsa's face. Her smile faded a little. "Are you still angry with me?"
"What? No, I'm not angry with you… Who are…" her voice choked as she could not force the question out of her mouth. At least she could still pretend she did not know the answer.
For the first time since she had met him, the Doctor remained completely silent, looking gravely at the scene before him. Elsa realised she would have loved for him to interrupt, even if it was to be rude to everyone.
The old woman slowly reached out and laid a wrinkled, feeble hand on Elsa's face.
"You are still as young as when I last saw you… when you let me in your ice palace… I'm sorry, Elsa!"
Elsa shivered. She was hesitating between pulling her head back to escape the invasive hand, or take it in hers instead. She managed to talk.
"Sorry for what?"
"I never realised I was angering you so much… I'm sorry, you should only have told me… That poor Kristoff… and all those people…"
Elsa tried to talk, but her throat closed. She felt the air becoming colder around her. It was only a matter of seconds before ice would appear. She reached up and clasped her hand around the woman's.
"I'm sorry Elsa… all of this is my fault… Whatever Hans said, it's my fault… I never knew… I made you so angry."
Elsa looked in the eyes of the woman and could not help notice that her disabled eye looked a lot like glass... or ice. She could not help noticing as well that eyes don't change much with time either.
"I was never angry with you…" she managed to whisper.
"Then why did you say all of those things, in your ice palace? Why did try to hurt me… That poor Kristoff, the ice harvester… without him… Why did you never stop the winter?"
Elsa swallowed. Ice was now spreading under her feet, she heard it. Only the hand she had wrapped around the old woman's remained warm. This is not possible. This is a nightmare. I will wake up.
"I never did this" she whispered. "I would never do this. I will never do this. I stopped the winter."
The old woman's face lit up with one of her bright smiles.
"Did you stop it now? Is it safe to go outside again? You are not angry with me any more? With Arendelle?"
There was loud knocking on the door.
"Grandmother?" came a muffled voice behind it. "Are you all right?"
"Yes I am!" the old woman shouted with surprising force. She turned to Elsa. "Have you met little Iduna? She will be happy that the winter stopped!"
"Iduna? But that was the name of my…"
The handle was turning.
"Grandmother!" came the voice. "Why is your door locked?"
"It's not locked. What is she talking about?" muttered the old woman.
The Doctor stepped up.
"I'm sorry, that was me. Is there another exit from your room?"
The woman looked at him, blinking.
"Wait, what? I'm sorry, I did not… Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor. Is there another way to exit this room?"
"No… why would you want to leave?" The old woman slipped out of her bed and wrapped herself in a heavy fur robe. "Little Iduna will be happy to meet Elsa. Now that the winter is stopped we can all be…"
"I'm sorry." Elsa cleared her throat. She was now standing in the middle of a pool of ice, and not quite sure that some snowflakes were not falling in the room. "I… did not stop the winter. It's still freezing outside."
"Oh." The old woman looked disappointed for a second, then looked up cheerfully again. "But you came back to us! We can be together again! You have to meet…"
"I'm sorry to insist" the Doctor interrupted, "but are you sure there is no other way to leave your room than this door?"
"No there is not" said the woman, turning to him. "But you don't need to leave! Everything will be fine…"
The lock clicked. The Doctor turned, pointing his sonic screwdriver, but it was too late. The door opened.
A young woman entered the room. Like everyone they had encountered so far, she wore heavy furs, although hers were in much better shape than the guards' had been. She stopped when she saw the Doctor and Elsa and drew a sword.
"Step away from my grandmother, both of you!" she ordered coldly.
"No, it's okay, Iduna, they were not bothering me! This is your great…"
"You know you should not get out of bed, Grandmother, you are too weak! And keep away from these people, you don't know if…"
Her eyes went wide as she looked at Elsa.
"It's you" she hissed, pointing her sword at her and stepping forward. She was a few years older than her, Elsa realised. And her face was also familiar, although this time she was sure she had never seen it before, young or old.
"No, stop" the old woman said, trying to totter between them. "She's not angry with us any more. She… she said that… she…"
She staggered, her breath quick. Elsa and the young woman both reached out to catch her. She collapsed in their arms.
"There", the old woman muttered, looking from one to another. "We are all together again. You'll have to meet Kristoff" she told Elsa. "He'll be happy to meet… his…"
"She needs to go back to her bed" the young woman said, glaring at Elsa. "She's very weak. She should not be disturbed."
Both women carried the frail body to the bed. The old woman was trying to mutter some words as they put her back under the heavy blankets, but she soon fell asleep.
"We will let her rest now" the young woman ordered. "I hope she'll have forgotten this when she wakes up."
They slowly exited the room, with the woman carefully closing the door behind her. She turned to them and drew her sword again, pointing it at Elsa and the Doctor.
"You are my prisoners. You will accompany me and you will be…"
"I'm sorry", the Doctor cut in, "but we are not going to be your prisoners."
"What?" the young woman said, taken aback. "Look, I'm the one with the sword here, and you don't and stop doing that now!"
She advanced threateningly on Elsa, pointing at the patch of ice that was surrounding her feet.
"I don't know what you told my grandmother" she hissed, "but I won't be fooled. If you really are… her… then no matter what Grandmother thinks, you are a stranger to me, and I won't hesitate to do what must be done if it can save our kingdom!"
"That's enough, now" the Doctor said, stepping up.
He laid his hand on the wrist of the young woman. She recoiled, trying to lunge at him with her sword, but he somehow managed to step around her while keeping his hand around her wrist. There was a complicated twist of his hand, then suddenly he was the one holding the sword.
The young woman drew herself up.
"Very well" she said with dignity. "If it must end like this, so be it. I won't beg."
The sword clattered loudly on the floor as the Doctor threw it away.
"Now listen to me" the grey-haired man said intently. "Whatever you may think about us, you are wrong. For one thing" he pointed at Elsa "she is not responsible for the winter you are having. Someone else is. Probably with the same powers as her. But, right now, this is not her."
The young woman called Iduna looked at him, then at Elsa, then back at him, puzzled.
"But… Grandmother said… she thought..."
"That she was your great-aunt?" the Doctor asked brusquely. Elsa could not suppress a gasp at hearing the words she had been desperately trying not to think. "She is not. Well, yes, she probably is, but not yet. And in any case, she's not the one that you are thinking about. So forget it, and consider that she is another woman with platinum hair and a green dress. And ice powers that she can't seem to control properly at the moment" he added, looking reproachfully at the expanding patch of ice under Elsa's feet. "Now", he said, turning back to Iduna, "could you tell us what has been going here in the last fifty years?"
The young woman looked at him, puzzled.
"You mean you don't know?"
"I told you already, we just arrived here."
Iduna hesitated, looking from the Doctor to Elsa.
"Who are you? Why did you come here?"
"I told you. I'm the Doctor. And I may be able to help you."
"You mean you could… stop the winter?"
"It depends. That's why I need you to explain everything to me."
Iduna finally reached a decision.
"I'll lead you to my father" she said. "But if you lied to me, if you harmed my grandmother…"
"Yes, yes, I know, you will probably do something horrible to us. Now please lead on."
The young woman looked at them intently for a while before turning around and walking along the corridor. Elsa and the Doctor followed her slowly.
"Doctor!" Elsa hissed after a few meters.
The Doctor glanced at her. She was doing her best to walk calmly, but was now unable to stop the occasional patch of ice to appear under her feet. She was surprised to see him move closer to her, his expression softening.
"This old woman… she really was…" Elsa whispered.
"Your sister? Of course, did you not recognise her?"
"But… she looked so… old…"
"Oh, she was, was she? So that's why she had white hair. She's better looking like that, by the way. Remind me to tell her that if I need to make her a compliment for some reason."
Elsa shivered and desperately tried to prevent the rush of cold air she felt around her, hoping that the young woman in front of them would not notice.
"Is she… isn't she in the TARDIS?"
The Doctor sighed loudly.
"Of course she is. Assuming she managed to remain there. People have an incredible tendency of not wanting to stay safely in the TARDIS when they can go endanger themselves somewhere else." He sighed again and looked at Elsa. "We are in the future. So this was the future version of your sister. Is that so hard to comprehend? I thought you were the clever one, even though that does not mean much."
"But she said I… was angry with her… I never would…"
"Oh, you probably will" the Doctor said dismissively. "Excuse me, Idina?" he said, quickening his pace to be on level with the woman leading the way.
"It's Iduna, Sir!"
"Whatever. How long has this winter been going on, exactly?"
"You really don't know?"
"Why do you think I ask?" the Doctor said brusquely, glancing back at Elsa who was hurrying to keep up.
"But everyone knows it! I was not born, and neither was my father, but I know it… It was the curse brought by my… great-aunt on the country… The day she fled the castle, the day my grandmother met… her husband" she spat the word with distaste. "It was the day the Snow Queen was crowned."
Author's Notes: I apologise for making the castle of Arendelle look like an endless maze of branching corridors, but the Doctor and his companions need to be chased by guards through corridors at least once an episode. And it's a huge castle anyway.
The Doctor (in his twelfth incarnation at least) has shown to be quite competent with swords (and spoons), so I considered he would be able to disarm Iduna without too much trouble. On the other hand, I don't remember the Doctor ever skating, and, even if he did, Twelve may have forgotten it.