The sled glided slowly over the dilapidated bridge as the driver manoeuvred to enter the courtyard.
"Yes, the Doctor" Anna explained happily to the young woman. "My sister and I met him a few times when we were younger, with his magic blue box. Now he does not look the same but he says he's still him…"
"How does he look like now?" the woman with the heavy veil asked from the back of the sled.
"He looks… older. And he does not always say nice things. Do you know him?"
Whatever the woman was about to answer was cut by another roar that echoed in the distance. This one sounded much closer. The driver glanced around him as the sled passed the ruined gate to the courtyard and muttered something under his breath.
"What was that? What are those Ice Beasts?"
"Pray you don't know, young lady" the driver said, driving the sled under an archway that was still standing.
"Nothing that can't be dispatched with a sufficient use of force!" shouted the short man who had so far remained silent in his seat in the back of the sled. "Don't worry, boy" he said to Anna, "we can take care of it."
"Silence, Strax" the woman with the veil intimated. "I'm Madame Vastra" she said, turning back to Anna, "and this is my… maid, Jenny. This is Strax" she said, designating the short man. "He has trouble telling male from female apart. We all came from London for an audience with the King."
"Nice to meet you" Anna said politely. "I'm Anna. I'm a girl, by the way" she added, looking at Strax.
Madame Vastra cocked her head, her face almost invisible behind the heavy veil.
"Anna? Nice to meet you too. Where do you come from?"
"I'm from… Arendelle. But it was summer when we left", Anna said, looking hesitantly around her.
"Here we are" the driver said, moving out of his seat. The sled had stopped under the archway, and a couple of people in heavy clothing were approaching from a door in the wall. They helped the passengers and Anna to climb down, giving curious looks to the princess, and began unloading the sled.
"Do you know where the Doctor is right now?" Madame Vastra asked while Jenny and Strax gathered their luggages.
"I think he's still inside the castle" Anna answered, looking curiously at the strange figure of Strax. The man reminded her of the Trolls from Kristoff's family.
Another roar echoed, this time much closer. Others answered it from the mountains. Anna shivered.
Madame Vastra suddenly lifted her veil. Anna gasped in surprise as she discovered a green, scaly face, with surprisingly human eyes sparkling with intelligence. They bore on her with uncomfortable penetration.
"Would you by any chance be Queen Anna of Arendelle?" she asked abruptly. "Maybe in your first years of reign?"
"Wait, what? No, I'm Princess Anna. The queen is my…"
Another roar erupted, shaking the walls. The people from the castle looked around them with fear. Some of them drew swords. Anna, still bewildered, saw Jenny exchange a glance with Vastra and crouch to one of their bags, as Vastra reached inside her dress and pulled out a small metallic device.
Something landed on all fours in the courtyard. It looked a bit like a bear, if bears were five meters high and made of snow with ice spikes protruding from their body. The thing looked left and right, then focused on the small group near the sled. The men drew their swords, while Jenny pulled a strange-looking sabre from her pack. The ice creature grunted, its empty eye sockets narrowing in their direction. Then it reared and roared again.
As the thing began charging them, Anna finally remembered of what this roar had been reminding her. This one was nothing but inarticulate sounds, but she had heard one very much like that from very close one year ago. It had been yelling at her and Kristoff not to come back.
The room was large, and comparatively well lit and heated from the fires burning in two chimneys and a brazier in the middle. Elsa recognised it instantly: this was the heart of the castle, the former throne room which was in her time mainly used when receiving prestigious guests. Most of its original decoration had been preserved, although there were more weapon racks than she remembered, and the windows had been boarded shut like everywhere else in the castle. The wall where the portraits of the last rulers of Arendelle were traditionally hung was still adorned with the official paintings.
Elsa gazed at them automatically as Iduna walked up to a man who had been hunched over a table covered with papers near the centre of the room. She always did this when she entered this room: she liked meeting the gazes of her ancestors, usually stopping on the comforting eyes of her parents. Even now, in this nightmarish parody of the castle she knew, their serene gazes, forever preserved in the painting, soothed her troubled mind. Then she tensed again as she saw the next paintings. The spot where she was accustomed to see her own portrait, which she rarely looked at, and only because she had insisted for Anna to also appear there, was conspicuously empty. There was another portrait next to it now. It represented her sister, clad in regal clothes, looking a few years older, and a lot more serious than Elsa had ever seen her. At her side…
"Hello! You must be the King" the Doctor said loudly, making Elsa jump and pulling her out of her horrified recognition. "I'm the Doctor. This is… someone who travels with me." The Doctor bowed slightly in front of the man who had been hunched over the table. He looked back slightly incredulously at the Time Lord while Iduna glared defiantly.
Elsa glanced at the man. He reminded her of her father, with his thin, distinguished features. But there was someone else of whom he reminded her… His expression, however, was despondent. On that account, it also reminded her of how her father sometimes looked when he had failed to comfort her.
"Hello… Doctor" he said wearily. "I'm indeed King Kristoff of Arendelle… or what is left of it." He glanced nervously at Elsa, who looked down to avoid his gaze and shuffled back into the shadows. "I understand you were chased by some of our guards. They thought they recognised your… companion."
"She's not my… oh, I guess she is now. Well, I understand she looks like someone rather famous around here." The Doctor glanced around the room, then back at the king. "Your aunt, apparently. What I wanted was to know why."
"You mean you really don't know?"
"That's why I'm asking. We've been… away for some time. Oh" the Doctor added, as if an afterthought, "I may be able to help if you tell me."
"Help? How?"
"I have no idea. I hope I'll find something clever while you explain everything to me."
"How can I trust you?"
The Doctor hesitated for a second.
"You're the son of the one with the freckles, right?" he asked, vaguely gesturing toward the painting.
"Queen Anna is my mother, yes" the king answered haughtily.
"Did she ever told you about a man in a blue box? With… a bow tie" the Doctor added reluctantly, making no attempt to hide the disgust in his voice. "Building snowmen with her."
The king squinted, looking from the surprised Iduna to the Doctor.
"She did tell me this story a few times" he slowly said after some seconds. "How could you know…"
"I'm this man. Or rather, I'm his successor. That will spare me having to explain you about time travel and regenerations. I've visited your mother and her sister a few times when they were younger."
"These snowmen were a happy memory from my mother's childhood" the king said dreamily, his eyes distant. "I always thought they were something she had made up. I understand she had a rather… active imagination in her younger days."
"I assure you I'm very real. So, can you explain to me now what happened in the last half century?"
The king shrugged.
"Well, it's not as if I had much to do… and for once it seems we are getting visitors today." He looked again nervously at Elsa, who was now busily looking at the room around her without actually seeing any of it.
"I understand something went wrong when… your aunt… was crowned."
"The Snow Queen." The king spat the words. "Yes. She got into an argument with my mother, and revealed hitherto unknown powers over ice. She invoked a magical winter onto the whole kingdom and fled into the mountain." He spoke steadily in a low, weary voice, his eyes distant, like someone who has heard this story many times before, and repeated it just as often.
"My mother went after her. She went all the way into the mountain by herself, only with the help of a lone ice harvester named Kristoff." The king's voice wavered a bit as his eyes wandered over the portrait of Anna on the wall. Elsa had retreated into the darker corner of the room, doing her best to be unnoticed while listening to every of his words, and desperately trying to contain the ice that was forming around her. She could feel the gaze of Iduna occasionally honing on her.
"The Snow Queen rejected my mother" the king resumed bitterly. "She struck her with her powers. She would probably have killed her, without the sacrifice of the ice harvester." The king paused. "I was named in his memory."
The Doctor turned briefly around and met Elsa's gaze, just as she was about to jump from the shadows to shout that this was not possible. The queen wondered if she had not seen the slightest hint of compassion in the austere eyes. She contained herself, while the wall behind her crackled with frost.
"A search party led by… her fiancé… found my mother and brought her back to the castle. She was sick from the Snow Queen's powers. Half of her hair turned white, and one of her eyes turned into ice, and remained that way forever."
Elsa tried to refrain a gasp. She was glad that Iduna's attention was now entirely focused on the Doctor and the king, as ice was now creeping from her in every direction. She glanced at Anna's portrait again. Her sister was indeed portrayed with many strands of white hair, one of them covering her eye, the same one Elsa had noticed as being pearly blue.
"What happened then?" the Doctor asked sternly, pacing back and forth and stopping in a position that happened to be right between the king and his daughter and the corner where Elsa was desperately trying to disappear.
The king sat slowly. "Nothing, Doctor. Nothing happened. The winter went on. It has been going on for fifty years now." He slumped in his chair. "My mother took over the crown and married…" he spat the words "my father, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles." The Doctor heard Iduna inhale sharply and grind her teeth. "She tried to return to the mountain many times, but the Snow Queen never let her, or anyone, reach her. Then she unleashed the Ice Beasts…"
"Ice Beasts? Beasts made of ice? She also could do that?" the Doctor asked, briefly casting a curious glance at Elsa, who was now surrounded with frost and trying to retreat to the door.
"Yes." The king sighed. "People began leaving the country. Eventually… even my father left." The king did not try to hide the contempt in his voice. "My mother thought he was her true love, but apparently he mainly wanted a throne to sit on." The king clenched his fist. "And a kingdom buried in ice, whose few remaining inhabitants were fighting for their daily lives, was not the throne he wanted."
Iduna put her arms around her father. The king lovingly hugged her back.
"And there we are now, Doctor. A few hundredth of people, most of them huddled in the royal castle, barely surviving thanks to our exports of ice. That's right" he added, smiling humourlessly, "Arendelle is now a prime producer of ice in any season. That's how we managed to survive so far."
"And… the Snow Queen has remained in the mountains every since? No one has seen her again?"
"No. No one who came back to talk about it anyway. Only her Ice Beasts could be seen, although they usually don't come close to the castle."
"And the winter never stopped and never spread from your country?"
"Well… not until recently, anyway." The king shifted uncomfortably. "Apparently, in the last few years, the countries around us began experiencing strongest winters. Weselton, the Southern Isles… even the British Isles have apparently been…"
"Father! Look!" Iduna shouted suddenly.
She was pointing at Elsa, and the ice that was now covering part of the floor and the walls around her. The queen desperately backed to the door, her hands raised, blubbering apologies and denials.
"Who are you?" the king shouted, standing up, while Iduna was picking up a sword from one of the racks.
"OK, OK, calm down everyone" the Doctor shouted, backing up to Elsa. "Platinum here has ice powers, but she is not… whatever she's doing, she's not doing it on purpose. And she does not want to harm anyone, I've got proof of that."
"She's Elsa."
Elsa gasped at the sound of the familiar, nasal voice, as everyone turned their heads to the source of the interruption.
Olaf was slowly entering the room. Elsa's first thought was that he lacked his flurry and was in risk of melting, before remembering that the temperature was probably close to freezing, even in this well heated room. Then she noticed that the little snowman was shuffling forward very slowly, keeping his head down, unlike the bouncing gait she was used to see in him. As he raised his head, she realised that the carrot that had been his nose was missing.
"What is that?" the Doctor hissed incredulously.
"He's Olaf… I created him" she whispered back.
"Hello, Elsa" Olaf said in a very flat voice. "Nice of you to visit us" he added, with a hint of the cheerfulness Elsa had come to associate with him.
There was a metallic noise behind them. The king and his daughter were now brandishing swords. The Doctor sighed loudly.
"Oh, please" he said with exasperation. "Could you stop waving your metal sticks around any time there is something you don't understand? What does this… ice-cream brain know about who is whom anyway?"
"Don't insult Olaf!" Iduna shouted indignantly. "He's been a faithful companion to my grandmother for a long time!"
"Actually, Doctor, he always seemed to know where Anna and I are" Elsa whispered timidly. "It's some kind of… intuition."
"Oh, he does, does he?" the Doctor said, crouching to be on the little snowman's level. "Hello, ice-cream brain. I'm the Doctor."
"Hello, Thedoctor" Olaf articulated slowly, his voice slurred.
"So tell me, mister snowman" the Doctor went on, oblivious to King Kristoff and Iduna slowly closing on them, their swords raised, "if you can always tell where Elsa is… where is she now?"
"She's there" Olaf answered, slowly pointing to the green-clad girl, who was now surrounded by ice. The little snowman frowned. "And… in the mountain. Like she has always been ever since she created me."
"A-ha!"
The Doctor slowly stood up, and beamed smugly at the king and his daughter, ignoring the guards who had entered the room from the other side, swords raised.
"Did you heard what your snowy friend said?"
"He's… confused" Iduna said hesitantly. "Olaf, where is the Snow Queen? Is she this lady?"
"Yes, she is. But she is also in the mountains. Wait… I think she's also coming."
"What?"
Even the Doctor looked surprised. Olaf pointed to a door.
"And Anna is that way. And… in her room" he added in a puzzled voice. "I'm going to lie down" he said, rubbing his forehead.
"No, actually, there is a very logical explanation…" the Doctor began.
The door Olaf had pointed burst open, and a group of people rushed into the room. Some of them were wounded.
"Your Majesty!" one of the men panted. "The Ice Beasts are attacking! Some of them jumped into the courtyard!"
"Prepare everyone for combat!" a voice yelled from behind them. "Distribute grenades to any person with enough force for throwing them successfully! Set up traps to collapse walls on the intruders! Be ready for…"
"Silence, Strax" a cold, commanding voice interrupted. "Stop waving your weapon around and tend to the wounded."
The owner of the voice, a tall woman with a green skin and lizard-like features, walked through the crowd up to the king.
"Good morning, your Majesty. I'm Madame Vastra from London, this is my wife Jenny, and this is Strax. I'm requesting an audience. Hello Doctor", she added, with a nod to the grey-haired man.
"Hello" the Doctor answered. "What brought you there?"
"The weather has been getting colder in the British Isles in the last years. We traced the source of this cold to this kingdom. There is apparently a legend of a past queen with cryokinetic powers and…"
"It's not a legend" the Doctor said curtly.
Vastra smiled.
"So, you are already on the case?"
"It seems I am now."
"Excuse me?"
King Kristoff had stepped between them, looking more than a little bewildered. He composed himself and turned to Vastra.
"I apologise for not being able to grant you this audience right now, Madam, but my kingdom is under attack. I do thank you for your help, as my men just told me that you and your… companions were instrumental in…"
A roar echoed in the distance, muffled by the walls and the boarded windows.
"I must prepare for combat. This has never happened before. I fear the worst." He paused a second. "Are you here on behalf of the Queen Victoria?"
"No. We have no ties to the British crown. Besides, I'm a Silurian."
Kristoff smiled humourlessly.
"And here I thought we had attracted the attention of yet another power eager to 'help' us."
Another roar, shook the walls of the castle, quickly followed by others.
Elsa had been looking at the scene, desperately trying to make sense of it and to avoid turning the room into an ice cave. The small part of her brain that still tried to think like the Queen of Arendelle briefly wondered if they had been talking about the same Queen Victoria who had been crowned a few years before her. Then light returned into her world as she noticed a lithe, magenta clad figure hesitantly approaching the group.
"Anna!"
Elsa rushed to her sister and grabbed her into a tight embrace. Anna was only too happy to return the hug, although slightly surprised by the strength with which her sister was clutching to her.
"Anna! My little Anna! Are you all right?"
"I'm all right! I met these people, they know the Doctor, then an Ice B… some kind of monster attacked us, and the short man shot light at it from a strange crossbow, and…"
"I love you my little Anna! I'll always love you! You know that, right?" Elsa blubbered, trying to fight back her tears.
"Of course Elsa, I love you too!" Anna answered, slightly puzzled. She realised her sister was shaking and felt a draft of cold air around her. She hugged Elsa tighter. "What happened? Is this really Arendelle? Not another place that looks incredibly like it?"
"It seems so" Elsa whispered. "We are in the future."
"But… that can't be the future… everything is still frozen…" Anna stopped as she realised the air around her was becoming colder. "Does the Doctor know what is happening?" she asked. "Does that sort of thing happen when we travel in time?"
"I don't know Anna." Elsa breathed deeply, slowly breaking the tight embrace. "I can't even thaw the winter outside. I tried."
"You should go back to the TARDIS."
The Doctor was suddenly standing in front of the sisters. They could hear the king shouting orders and Strax and Vastra arguing behind them, while roars were now echoing continuously behind the walls. Elsa could not help noticing that the grey-haired man was standing so as to block most of the room from Anna's view.
"Go to the TARDIS, Doctor?" Anna said, puzzled. "But…"
"I could help, Doctor" Elsa said, composing herself while still keeping an arm wrapped around her sister's shoulders. "But you should go back to the TARDIS, Anna."
"Wait, what? But… I want to help, too!"
"Help. How do you want to help in a fight against an invasion of ice monsters?" the Doctor asked sharply.
"But that's… that's what you are going to do, aren't you?"
"Of course, but I'm more clever. And I'm used to do that."
"But you had to begin, one day!" Anna said petulantly. "And I don't want to hide when people are in danger! Especially if they are from Arendelle!"
"You do realise" the Doctor enunciated slowly, "that there is danger out there? That you may end up killed?"
Elsa nodded gravely. The Doctor went on.
"You do know that this would probably not be one of those comfortable deaths where it looks as if you are sleeping, but one where you get cut and all your body fluids start leaking painfully?"
Anna shuddered. Elsa looked at the Doctor.
"I know that" she said calmly.
"And you still want to stay and help?"
"Yes."
"Me too" Anna said. "That's what sisters do" she added as Elsa was opening her mouth to protest.
"Good." The Doctor smiled unexpectedly. He rubbed his hands together. "Then let's get to work."
"Wait" Anna asked. "You do not want us to go and hide in the TARDIS any more?"
"Of course I do" the Doctor said abruptly. "Because I'm responsible if something bad happens to you. But since you know what the risks are, there's no point in arguing if you do want to help."
Vastra had appeared at the Doctor's side.
"It will be hard to convince these people to flee the fight, Doctor" she said. "They have been defending this castle against the winter for so long…"
"What is it with this place that everyone is ready to die defending it?" the Doctor asked abruptly. "Oh never mind, just probably humans being humans. Here" he pointed at Anna, "you have already met Freckles. She wants to help, so take her with you and be prepared."
There was the briefest glance exchanged between the grey-haired man and the green-scaled woman.
"Of course, Doctor" she acquiesced. "Come, Anna, we need to go defend the castle."
"Wait, what? But, Doctor, I want to stay with…"
"Off you go!" the Doctor interrupted, grabbing Anna by the shoulders and pushing her toward the lizard woman. "Chop-chop, go find something clever to delay those Ice Beasts. I need to think of something."
Jenny took the cue and pulled Anna away. Vastra and Strax followed them in the corridor along the hurrying guards.
"Why did you send her away?" Elsa blurted angrily. "Could not we all stay together?"
The Doctor leaned toward her.
"Your sister has a portrait of herself on the wall here. I don't have the time to explain the reason why three times over to all the pudding-brains in this room, your sister included. They would probably go all human, and I don't have time for that."
"Could I have not gone with her?"
"You are the one with the ice powers, I need you around to test some theories."
"Is she going to be all right?" Elsa asked anxiously. "Who are these people?"
"People I trust" the Doctor said bluntly. "Don't worry, they will run her around the castle away from the excitement, maybe shoot an Ice Beast or two."
"Excuse me, Doctor?"
Elsa jumped. The king was standing behind them. She noticed him casting a curious glance at the disappearing figure of her sister.
"You said you may be able to help… If your offer still stands, now is the time to make good on it."
"I am." The Doctor paused for a second, looking in the distance. "Has anyone already tried to speak with those Ice Beasts of yours?"
"What?" The king looked bewildered. "They're beasts! They are just mindless forces of destruction, unleashed by the fury of the Snow Queen!" he added, casting a nervous glance at Elsa, who had been craning her neck fruitlessly trying to catch a last glimpse of Anna.
"What is the difference with an average human?" the Doctor deadpanned. He smacked his forehead. "No, don't tell me, humans are not unleashed by the fury of the Snow Queen."
The king shrugged and whirled around to shout orders to a group of guards passing them by.
The Doctor stepped closer to Elsa. "Tell me, Platinum, did your fury often unleash beasts, apart from ice-cream brain over there?"
"I'm not the Snow Queen" Elsa said in a steely voice, trying to keep the comforting image of her young sister present in her mind. "I did create Marshmallow" she said in a lower voice. "But he's not mindless… Just a bit quick to anger… Oh, and I created little snowmen when I had a cold, but they were good natured…"
"Are you trying to drown the world in ice-cream brains?" the Doctor scolded. "Do they all know where you are as well?" he asked in almost the same tone.
"I… don't know" Elsa said hesitantly. "Olaf lives with us in the castle, so we noticed it eventually, but I don't know for the others…" She gasped. "Do you think the Ice Beasts are attacking because I'm here?"
"That's a possibility."
"But Doctor… this would mean that…" Elsa made a gesture encompassing the gloomy room, the guards running in all directions and the king frantically shouting orders as distant thumps kept resonating through the walls "all of this is… real?"
"Of course it is! Did you think it was not just because it's in your future? The future has a right to exist too!"
"But… that's not possible!"
"Oh?" The Doctor crossed his arms. "Then if the future is not possible…"
"No, I mean… This can't be my future! Things did not happen as they say it did! I thawed the kingdom! I thawed it! And Anna was saved! And Kristoff did not die! He and Anna are… together now!"
"Then it will happen later in your timeline…"
"No! It can't! Anna could never marry Hans now that she knows who she is! And… I did freeze the kingdom on the day of my coronation, as they said I did! But it did not turn out like that!"
The Doctor looked suddenly very serious. His brow furrowed, which was an impressive sight in a man with such eyebrows.
"Oh. So you are trying to tell me, in your limited human ways, that we are facing a retroactive time alteration… A paradox…" He looked away for a few seconds. "Was that why you were so upset?" he mumbled, as if talking to himself. "You knew they were about to be rewritten... Oh, you sentimental old girl." He looked up at Elsa. "We'll have to sort this out later" he said. "Right now, we are in a castle full of people attacked by monsters."
"But… if this is not the right future… can't we fix it? So that they remember correctly me thawing the country and everything else… Would not that… solve this?"
The Doctor fixed his piercing gaze on her.
"Do you think we should leave these people here and go back to the TARDIS, to try finding why time was rewritten?" he asked calmly, as if genuinely not knowing the answer.
"Of course not" Elsa answered without thinking. "I mean… does… if we prevent this from happening…" She blinked as the memory of her old thought experiments resurfaced, when she was locked in her room dreaming of going back in time to prevent her from harming Anna. "Will this still be happening… Somewhere? Some… when?"
"Yes. Now."
"Who are you two exactly?"
Elsa and the Doctor jumped. Iduna was standing near them, leaning against the wall. The confusion around them had ensured that their conversation has remained relatively unnoticed by everybody else, but it had also ensured that the approach of the young woman had remained equally unnoticed by themselves.
"You were eavesdropping" the Doctor stated. "How much did you heard?"
Iduna stepped toward them.
"What are you hiding?"
"Nothing. I just want to know what you heard so that I won't have to tell you twice."
"You do look like the few old portraits of the Snow Queen…" she mused, looking at Elsa. "Yet you are saying that you can't have become her…"
"We are time travellers. We come from your past. And she's your great-aunt from fifty years ago." The Doctor turned to Elsa, smiling. "Telling the truth is fun!"
Iduna pondered for a few seconds.
"Who was the other woman you sent away with the strange people from London?"
"OK, that's enough truth for today" the Doctor said sternly. "You are a clever girl. Figure it out."
Iduna gently shook her head.
"She can't be… she can't be Grandmother. They never were so close, except when they were little girls. Grandmother told me about it many times."
Elsa swallowed with difficulty.
"We became close again… after I thawed the kingdom" she muttered. "It happened. I remember it." She evoked Anna's radiant smile in her mind and managed to steady her voice enough to speak up. "I'm sorry if it… did not happen for you."
"We will worry about that later" the Doctor said in a definite tone. "Now, what would you say about stopping these ice monsters?" he said as a cacophony of roars was heard through the thick walls.
Author's Notes: Olaf being able to know where the sisters are is a fan speculation I picked up somewhere. It does makes some sense, and it was useful for my story, so I used it.