DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it. If you don't recognize it, then I probably don't own that either.

"You know, being dead is going to make this terribly complicated. I wouldn't recommend it."

Elsa let her eyes crack open, and she immediately regretted it. A fire was raging in her head, and every bone in her body felt as though it had been ground to dust. She tried moving a hand, but there was barely enough strength in her for that. "Hello…?"

"Ah, so you decided to live after all." A deep, lilting voice floated from the shadows close to her ear. "Very wise choice."

"Who are you?"

"Over here."

Straining her neck, Elsa looked to her left. Next to her head sat the black cat from before, its tail swishing with impatience. It stared at her for another moment, then opened its mouth. "I would be on the move soon if I were you."

Elsa's eyes bugged out. "This has to be a dream…"

"Have fun trying to wake up from it, then," the cat replied. "You're in her kingdom now, and his playground. They told you your sister could be lost forever, but they aren't right yet. You must find her, Elsa. Before she finds him."

Elsa blinked. When she opened her eyes again, the cat had vanished. "...Anna." She needed to get to Anna.

Digging her fingers into the dirt, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Twigs and dead leaves rustled beneath her as she moved. Her hair had come undone, and something wet and runny was splattered on the strands. When she touched it and pulled her hand away to look, she saw dark spots of blood. Her face turned pale, and she gagged at the sight. Once she had managed to force the bile back down her throat, Elsa gradually became aware of the light source behind her. Natural light, pale and wispy. She struggled to her feet and turned around, squinting in the full force of the glow. It was coming through a large opening, and she'd been lying just past its threshold. Picking up what was left of her skirts, she carefully stepped over the rocks and out of the cave.

Funny. She didn't remember being in a cave. Then she thought back to what the cat had said: you're in her kingdom now, and his playground. What on earth had it meant by…"Oh."

Elsa had no idea what kingdom the landscape before her was part of, but it certainly wasn't Arendelle. Gone were the lush hills, the snow-capped mountains and the salty ocean. Instead there was a flat plain of dull yellow grass as far as the eye could see in all directions. A great gray rock broke the monotony here and there, but only occasionally. At the horizon, the grass melted into a muddy, cloudless sky. A sun, small and bright yellow, was beginning to peek into view.

Chills ran down Elsa's neck. There appeared to be no other living soul about, and yet she felt as though a pair of eyes were watching her every move. "Hello?" she called out, wrapping her arms around herself. "Is anyone here? Wherever here is?" No answer.

Keep it together, Elsa. Taking a breath, she focused on the sun. That must be the east. Hopefully. Either way, she supposed it was as good a place to start as any. "I'm coming, Anna."

Such a shame she didn't go the other way, the prisoner on the throne thought as he watched her trudge along. But then again, that wouldn't be nearly as fun.

"Say, pal, you don't look so good. You'd better find something to eat before night comes."

Anna's eyes flew open, and she bolted upright. "What did you do to me?" There was no one to answer, only a faint puff of smoke left behind by...something. She was probably better off not knowing what.

Scrambling to her feet, she looked about her feverishly. There was a hole in her memories, just after Olaf had left the library. Something about a secret door and a mirror, and now she was here. Wherever here is.

She stood on a field of dark green grass, soft and damp to the touch. The sky above her was slowly being covered in black stormclouds, but she could see patches of dark brown between them. Well, that's not weird at all. To her left was a plain of tall yellow grass, and to her right was a forest of pine trees. Pine trees and the faint sound of someone chopping away at them. Sure enough, one of them wobbled and tumbled over as she watched. "Another one! We'll win this yet, eh, Lucy?"

"Hey!" Anna shouted, making a beeline for the felled tree. "Can you help me? I think I'm lost!"

The closer she got, the slower she began to walk. She couldn't place her finger on just what it was, but something wasn't right about these trees. Their roots stretched out like gnarled feet, and the twisted creases on their bark looked almost like sleeping faces. If trees had faces. Which they don't.

A glint of light in the corner of her eye got her attention, and she turned. A lone figure stood beside the fallen tree, its back to her. "Its" because she wasn't quite sure what it was. It was shaped like a human, yes, but Anna was pretty sure that most humans weren't covered completely in copper and had screws sticking out of its head. She began to back away, but stepped on a twig and snapped it.

The figure whirled around, staring right at her with a pair of empty eye sockets. "LIFE DETECTED."

Anna sputtered out a nervous laugh and silently cursed her suddenly useless legs. "Yeah, that's me…"

"IDENTIFIED: HUMANOID FLESHLING." The automaton marched towards her, its arms reaching for her neck. "EXTERMINATE."

"H-Hey, can't we talk about this?"

"EMPATHY MODULE NOT RESPONDING." With a burst of speed, it clamped its hands around Anna's throat and began to squeeze.

Frightened tears formed in Anna's eyes as she gasped for breath scrambled to pry off the creature's fingers. She kicked at its legs, but it simply lifted her off the ground. Neither of them noticed the drops of rain splashing down from the storm clouds until it was too late.

The automaton abruptly stiffened as the rain began to pour. Its head rattled and sparked, then slumped forward. Anna wriggled out of its loosening grasp and dropped to the ground, holding her bruised neck. Her knees were too weak for her to stand, and she tried to crawl away from the monster but collapsed on her stomach. As she lay in the dirt trembling, she heard the tree near her start to crack. It was tipping over, headed straight for her, and she was in too much shock to move. Only her eyes seemed willing to function, and all they could do was stare up in horror at what was coming -

"Look out!"

A pair of hands grabbed Anna's arms and roughly dragged her out of the tree's path. It crashed a few feet from her head, barely missing one of her braids. Through her blurry vision, she could make out a dark-haired figure stomping off in the direction the tree had fallen from. "Stupid! Didn't you see that girl, Woodie?"

Anna sat up and rubbed her eyes. In front of the stump stood a girl about her age, dressed in red and black and wearing her hair in curling pigtails. She was staring daggers at a bearded, red-haired man in plaid, and he was doing the same at her. "This is exactly what I was talking about. Fire doesn't crush."

The man she called Woodie pulled a fire axe out of the stump. "Can it bring down thirty trees in ten minutes, Miss Willow?"

Willow pointed behind her. "Forty."

Sniffing the air, Anna caught the scent of burning charcoal blowing in from the west. She stood up and looked, then nearly fell down again when she saw what was happening. A large clump of trees sprawled across the plain, and each of them was burning from leaves to roots. The rain was doing little to put the blazes out, and the thick smoke was rising into the sky.

Willow put her hands on her hips and smiled as she observed her handiwork. "Isn't it pretty?"

"Uh…"

The sound of crackling wood was abruptly joined by a shriek, and a little old woman came darting out of the forest. In her hands was a slightly smoldering book, which she beat on the grass until she had killed the embers. Looking up, she saw Willow and scowled. "Alright," she snapped as she marched up to the girl, "hand the lighter over."

Willow blanched, a notable feat. "But I need it for tonight!"

"Then you'll have it back tonight. You too, Woodrow."

Woodie hid the axe behind his back. "You don't want to upset Lucy, eh?"

"I don't think you need any help with that."

A person with a level head on their shoulders? Could Anna possibly be that lucky? Well, only one way to find out. "Excuse me!" she called out, stumbling forward. "Can you help me?"

The old woman started, noticing her for the first time. "Who's this?"

"My name's Anna," she answered hesitantly. "Where am I? Who are you people? What's going on?"

Woodie raised his eyebrows. "A newcomer, eh? Poor girl."

The old woman leaned in closer, examining Anna's neck. "You're bruised."

"T-There was this thing...I don't know what it was. It wanted to kill me."

"His empathy module broke again."

"That's what he...wait, what? How did you know about that?"

"I built WX-78 myself. For more benign purposes, of course," she added, noting Anna's look of suspicion. "Library assistant. You'll have to excuse him, he has no idea what he does. And neither do my other companions, it seems."

"I saved her life, Wickerbottom!" Willow said.

"It only needed saving because of your little contest, child. What have I told you about using that horrid contraption of yours? The world will end in fire and tribulation…!"

Anna began to back away. "Yeah, well, I guess it was nice meeting you guys - "

"You can't leave," Wickerbottom told her. "You won't last a day on your own."

"We haven't got enough food for another," Woodie remarked.

"She'll earn her keep once she's settled in. Won't you?"

"Look, I'm just trying to find my sister," Anna said. "You haven't seen her, have you? Tall, blonde, regal, probably shooting ice out her hands?"

The three of them stared at her with looks that spoke of concern on a number of levels. "I would've remembered that," Willow said eventually.

"At least stay with us a while, dear," Wickerbottom said. "Until you're well enough to care for yourself."

"You won't be much use to that sister of yours if you're dead," Willow added happily.

Anna looked at their faces, then out at the emptiness surrounding her. "Do you stay around here?"

"We're traveling south. We need to make it as far as we can before winter comes."

If they would be on the move, then that was all she needed to know. "What are we waiting for?"

Three miles to the east, the prisoner's other plaything was not having nearly as much luck. "Anna?" Elsa shouted at the horizon, trying in vain not to drag her skirts through the mud. There had been a path, but she had lost it some ways back. She flinched at each cold raindrop on her face and kept her head down. "Anna, are you there?"

"...away…"

Elsa looked up. In the distance was a solitary oak tree, and in its branches, she could just make out a waving figure. The weight on her heart briefly lessened, and she began to run. "Anna?"

"Stay away…"

That wasn't Anna. Elsa's pace slowed as she neared the tree. "Who are you?"

Sitting in the branches was a little girl. She couldn't have been more than eight, but her face seemed much older. It was darkened by shadows and dour, not unlike what her own reflection had once been. The girl wore a faded white dress, and her yellow hair was braided in pigtails and adorned with a drooping red blossom. "Stay away," she repeated. Her voice was soft and airy.

"Why not?" Elsa asked.

The girl pointed down. "Him," she replied in a whisper. "He's waiting for me."

The him she needed to stop Anna from finding, perhaps. "Who are you talking about?" Elsa said as she approached the base of the tree. "I can't see anyone - "

THWACK! She had stepped on something small and wooden, and suddenly two halves of a large mesh sphere popped out of the grass and clamped around her. "What the…?"

A feverish cackle filled the air, and a figure jumped out from behind the tree. "There you are!" he shouted at Elsa, his accent thick and English. "I'm going to stomp you dead this time!"

Elsa supposed he was a man, or at least had been one. His dark hair was matted and sticking out in all directions, his tangled beard reached almost down to the ground and his eyes were wild and bloodshot. He carried a makeshift spear in his hands, and he jabbed it through the holes in the trap. "Get me out of here, devil!"

He kicked at the trap. It rolled over, then fell apart. Jumping out, Elsa raised her hands to shield herself from her attacker. A bolt of ice flew from her palms and struck the spear, shattering it. The man instantly recoiled and cowered beneath the tree, staring at her agape.

"I don't want any trouble," Elsa said, not breaking her defensive pose. "I just want to find my sister."

The man crept closer to her, hunched over like an animal and squinting his eyes. "You...you're not him."

"Who's him?"

Considering the way her day was going, it was perfectly natural for the sky to choose that moment to send down a bolt of lightning. Elsa screamed as it struck the man in the head, illuminating his skeleton. He slumped to the ground, a charred mess.

The girl dropped down from her perch, ran his body and placed an ear to his chest. "Is he dead?" Elsa asked, uncovering her mouth.

"He's still breathing," the girl replied after a moment. "How sad he would be to know." She paused, then rolled him over onto his back. "He's got a pack. See?" Pulling it off, she began to rummage through the little brown bag.

Elsa sat down next to her. "You just said he was still alive."

The girl didn't seem to care. "Is this food?" she wondered to herself as she held up a white rod. It was, upon closer inspection, a bone of some sort. Not too old, as there was still a bulb of flesh at one end. "Perhaps we can find where it came from."

Elsa took the bone in her hand, running her hand along the strange creases in the skin. "Strange. Looks a lot like an eyelid."

That, of course, was when it opened and stared at her. It frosted over in her hand, and she flung it across the field half a second later. "Come on, we're getting out of here."

"Wait a second!" the girl said. She went running after the bone. "I think there's something coming."

"Then why are you going towards it?"

Sure enough, something was bouncing across the plain in their direction. It was a small, furry orange blob: four stumpy legs, two curved horns, a pink tongue lolling out of his mouth, a set of stubby teeth. It stopped next to the bone and hovered around it as though guarding it. When the girl touched the bone, however, it made no attempt to stop her. It only yawned, and its jaw opened to an absurd angle. Its mouth seemed to take up most of its body. Inside lay tools, berries and a stack of papers.

"Get away from that thing!" Elsa hissed at the girl. "You don't know what it can do."

"I believe it's his companion," she answered.

"Oh, and I suppose that makes it better."

The girl walked back to the tree, eye bone in hand, and the creature bounced after her. "Do you know who this is?" she asked it, holding the eye so that it was looking at the man.

The creature yipped and hurried to its master's side, nudging the side of its head. It yipped at the girls, taking on a more concerned tone, then began to bounce away. It got a few feet, then turned back and yipped a third time. "What does it want?" Elsa asked.

"It wants us to take him and follow it," the girl said. "We're coming!"

"I don't know about this."

"I shall go by myself, then." Picking up one of the man's hands in both of hers, the girl started to drag him along.

"But you just can't...you'll both…" If I'm there when he wakes up, maybe I can finally get some answers. "...Wait for me!"

Next chapter: There will indeed be answers. Answers and mildly off putting quirkiness.