A Walk In The Park Chapter 3: Take A Hike, a frozen fanfic

3-Take a Hike!

It was a few days past the events that went down in Arendelle history as "The Great Winter in July" followed by "The Great Thaw". For those with a bent for black humor, it might be known as "That Time the Queen Went All Ice Crazy". The people of Arendelle were still fond of their Queen, even if she had nearly killed them all - and did kill her sister, if only temporarily. An interesting summer, to say the least. Certainly one that stood out in the fairly mundane history of the peaceful kingdom.

Elsa, aka "The Queen That Went All Ice Crazy", was trying to calm her sister down. It wasn't going well.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Anna wasn't quite screaming, but only missed it by a few decibels. Elsa still didn't have an answer to that question that she herself was satisfied with, so it was hard to be convincing to Anna.

This was all Kristoff's fault.

The day after Elsa had created an ice rink for everyone to have a skating party, Anna and Kristoff were walking around town, enjoying the day. Sven was plodding along amiably, occasionally begging for carrots from Kristoff. Olaf was skipping from market stall to market stall, sniffing flowers and sometimes sneezing his head off. Literally. He would usually beat Sven to catching up to it. Sven just never gave up on that carrot nose. It had become almost a game for the two.

Kristoff was still feeling his way around the ... friendship that he felt towards Anna. The first day they had met, he had been incredulous that she had wanted to become engaged to a man she had just met. Events had proved that Kristoff had been right; Hans had been both crazy and devious, not great marriage material. The next two days had been an intense experience, to say the least, but the result was that Kristoff realized that he had become fond of her. It seemed that she might feel the same about him, but they were both willing to let things happen over time. At least one of the lessons they had both learned was that true love took time to grow.

In spite of his feelings for Anna, Kristoff was still wary and a little afraid of her sister, Queen Elsa. He knew Elsa could be dangerous. When they had confronted Elsa in her Ice Palace, Anna had pushed her into a panic attack that resulted in a blast of ice magic to Anna's heart. If the ice shard weren't removed, Anna would freeze solid, forever. Fortunately, Kristoff knew what to do. He took Anna to his family, the trolls. GrandPabbie, the eldest troll, had once healed a little girl who had been hurt by ice magic, and that little girl had turned out to have been Anna, so Kristoff was confident he could do it again.

It had proved to be more complicated this time around, although in the end everything had worked out. Kristoff knew that it was Anna's love for Elsa that had saved them both, but he still had reservations about the Queen. He thought it might be a good time to have a talk with Anna about those reservations. If for no other reason than friends generally should be open with each other about certain ... feelings. Like, for example, the feeling that their friend's big sister scared the ice out of him. Unfortunately, Kristoff wasn't the smoothest talker in the kingdom, being raised by trolls and all. He had been pretty much a loner before he had met Anna.

"So, Anna, could we talk about some of the stuff that happened?" Kristoff thought that was an innocent enough start.

"Sure! Like what?" Anna was skipping from stall to stall with as much enthusiasm as Olaf, chatting with anyone who showed the slightest inclination to talk to her.

"Well, like, how the Queen almost froze you to death." Hmm...maybe not so smooth. It didn't seem to faze Anna, though.

"Yeah, what about it?" Anna had spotted a chocolate vendor, and was making a beeline toward his booth.

"Well, um...didn't that bother you?"

"Not really. I mean, I was scared, sure, but I knew she did it by accident. And I didn't want to die. But I still loved her. And it worked out in the end, right? So, now we can just be friends and sisters again, and get caught up on everything we missed for thirteen years." Anna paid the merchant and popped a chocolate into her mouth. "Want one?"

"Soo...how is that catching up going for you?" Kristoff was getting nervous, wondering how to best phrase the real question he had for Anna, hoping the two sisters had already discussed it.

"We haven't had a lot of time, yet, Kristoff. It's only been a couple of days, and she had to have quite a few meetings with her Council and everybody, apologizing for the whole mess and reassuring everyone that everything was under control now and she wouldn't be destroying the kingdom and freezing everybody to death again. We've been talking some at night, before we go to sleep, though. Thirteen years is a long time, after all." She finished, "I'm just glad to have her back."

"Anna, I'm just concerned about you." Kristoff started again. "I don't want you to get hurt a third time."

This finally got Anna to focus on something other than chocolate. "What do you mean? Elsa only hurt me once. And she didn't mean for it to happen. It was an accident."

Kristoff kept digging his hole, not really listening to what Anna was saying, "Well, you would think she would have learned from the first time. Although you guys were pretty young." He said this thoughtfully. Not thoughtfully enough. Being thoughtful enough would have stopped him from continuing this conversation the minute he realized Anna had no idea what he was talking about.

"WHAT first time?" Anna snapped at him with a fiercely quizzical look. Now he REALLY had Anna's attention. Oops.

"Well, uh, remember when I said I knew the love experts could fix you because I had seen them do it before?" She nodded stiffly. The look on Anna's face started to register with Kristoff and he wondered if it was too late to find an excuse to go muck out Sven's stall.

"Uh, well, when I was eight, Grandpabbie cured a little girl who had been hit in the head with ice magic. He said it was lucky that she hadn't been hit in the heart. She was there with her parents and another little girl." Anna was very, very close to him now.

"What's that got to do with me?" she asked.

"Um, uh, well, when the four of them came to the valley, the trolls called the father 'Your Majesty' and I heard some of the other trolls say 'It's the king!'" Kristoff finished lamely. "So, I'm guessing that was you and Elsa and your parents."

Anna just stared. Her face had completely drained of blood and her freckles stood out stark against her pale skin.

"You are just telling me this NOW?" Anna's voice was loud. It was very, very loud. Kristoff started backing away as she came closer.

"I ... I ... didn't really think about it until after ... you know ... after ... she froze you again. It was a long time ago, I was only eight, ah ..." Kristoff realized he was talking to her retreating form. Rapidly retreating. Running. Clearly heading for the castle. He gulped. "Oh, boy, I think I just screwed that up really badly." Sven just looked at him. "Yeah, I think you did."

"We were trying to protect you." Elsa was defensive, she didn't handle confrontation well yet. Certainly not with her sister.

Elsa was far more introverted than Anna, having had fewer opportunities to socialize with people. After the accident where she had injured Anna, the castle had become far less open. Elsa had only carefully controlled exposure to tutors and advisers. She was going to rule the kingdom some day, after all. No one expected it to be so soon, however. Certainly her parents had no expectations that she would ascend the throne at 21. Fate was cruel.

Anna had more freedom around the castle, although her contact with the town was still limited. She also had tutors, although her training was not as intense as that of her elder sister.

The critical person missing from both girls' lives was ... each other. They had been inseparable playmates and best friends until the accident. The separation was intended to avoid another incident. Not so much because their parents didn't trust Elsa, although they could have done a much, much better job of explaining that to her. But because Anna was just such an exuberant, daring child that she would probably bring it on herself, just like the first time.

Elsa had intended to explain all of this to Anna, once they had a chance to get reaquainted and talk over all the missing years. It wasn't that she was avoiding it, although she still had pangs of guilt when she thought about that time. But she had decided it was a subject to be broached calmly, perhaps over lunch or lots of chocolate. Unfortunately the conversation, this conversation had begun when Anna had come storming into the castle gardens where Elsa was enjoying a brief respite between meetings. As far as Elsa had known, she had been in town with Kristoff, enjoying the day. So being confronted by a very upset and angry sister caught Elsa completely by surprise and unprepared.

"Elsa, so THAT'S why you were so afraid? Why you were so panicked when I came to the Ice Palace? Because that was the SECOND time you almost killed me?" Anna was insistent.

Elsa wrung her hands and couldn't bring herself to look at her sister.

"Anna, Mama and Papa took us to the trolls because Papa knew that they might have a cure for the magic. One of the trolls altered your memories of us playing together so you wouldn't remember that I had magic, or that I had hurt you." Elsa tried again to explain this to Anna in a quiet, rational way, hoping her sister would calm down. Anna just glared at her.

"Then, after we ... lost Mama and Papa, I was still too afraid of hurting you to tell you. I was so scared that I couldn't control my powers, that any small act of carelessness could hurt you again or even kill you." Elsa bitterly remembered how she couldn't even control herself long enough to attend the memorial for their parents, how she had cowered and wept in her room, listening to Anna outside her door. She looked at her sister.

Anna seemed to be a little calmer, although nowhere close to being her usual bubbly self.

"And that worked so well that I pushed you over the edge into an obvious display of your powers in front of everyone at your coronation ball." She snapped at Elsa in a biting tone and shook her head.

"And then to put the cherry in the chocolate cordial, I drove you straight into a panic attack at the ice palace. With the exact result you had been trying to avoid for thirteen years." Anna threw up her hands in frustration.

Elsa was pacing in front of the garden bench where Anna was sitting. Anna looked at her sister, really looked at her, and abruptly realized that Elsa was terrified again. She looked exactly as she had in the Ice Palace, just before Anna had pushed her into total hysteria. "What have I done?" Anna thought with dismay. "This isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to hurt her, I just wanted to know what happened."

Anna took a deep breath and forced herself to speak calmly. "Elsa, I'm sorry. Please, sit down. I didn't mean to come barging in here and start screaming at you." She reached out to her sister. "Please, please, let's just ... talk this over."

Elsa slowed her pacing, stopped, turned to Anna. She also took a deep breath, and finally, slowly, sat down next to her.

"How ... how did you find out? I was going to tell you, we just hadn't gotten that far along into getting to be with each other again..." Elsa's voice was soft, shaky. She was trembling and Anna could tell she was on the verge of tears.

"Kristoff told me." Anna forced herself to speak in a level voice. She reached over and took Elsa's hand. Sheepishly, she continued "I'll be honest; I got so angry I didn't stay around to hear the whole story. I think we'll need to corner him and get all of it out of him. Well, his side of it, anyway. I guess you have some memory of the meeting with Pabbie..." and trailed off as Elsa stiffened. She did indeed have memories of that day, memories seared into her heart.

"Elsa, please. Don't be afraid any more. We've come through it, no matter how botched it was, we are here, together. I love you, and I know you love me." The anger had drained from Anna, leaving her able to focus on Elsa again.

The two women did love each other deeply, or they simply wouldn't have survived the cruel events they had lived through. But they had been separated for thirteen years, and people change when they grow up. They were still tentative in reaching out to each other; their relationship was still fragile. They didn't really know each other, know the tender places where a wrong word could cut deeply or open up a wound still raw.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Anna was coming to a dawning realization that she had badly misinterpreted everything that she had believed for thirteen years. Suddenly, now that she knew about the first time, she started reliving the events of her life and began to understand just how callous she must have seemed to Elsa. How every time she had tried to play with her sister, it just twisted a knife in her gut, and magnified the guilt and shame Elsa felt about hurting Anna.

"What was I doing to her?" Anna was thinking. "Even seeing that white streak in my hair must have just reminded her of what she had done." Anna began to be ashamed of herself, ashamed of her selfishness. She had always acted as though she was the one with a grievance because Elsa and her parents had shut her out. But they really had been doing it out of love for Anna, no matter how much it hurt them, they were trying to protect her. Elsa was trying to protect her, without regard for the pain in her own heart to be without her sister.

"Anna, how could you be such an oblivious fool!" She said this out loud, not realizing it until Elsa turned to her and stroked her face gently.

"No, Anna, no, you can only act on information you have. Mama and Papa hid that from you, and so did I. But if I learned anything from this mess, it's that I will never conceal things like that from you ever again. " Elsa hugged Anna as tightly as she had that day on the fjord. "We need to promise each other that we will be open and trust each other. No more doors separating us." They stayed like that for a bit, drawing comfort from the touch of each other. Anna finally stirred and looked at Elsa.

"Elsa?"

"Yes?'

"How do you feel about taking a little hike?"

It was quiet on the mountainside. Very quiet. The only sound was their footsteps, trudging along the trail to the Valley of Living Rock.

Anna had gone looking for Kristoff and informed him that they were taking a little hike to see GrandPabbie. She was still ... annoyed with him, but her talk with Elsa had made her more sensitive to seeing other people's viewpoints. Kristoff, for his part, was happy to guide her back to see his family, hopeful that he could make up for his clumsy attempt to talk to her about the freezing thing. He was still a little uneasy with the third member of the party, and was not altogether successful in hiding it.

Queen Elsa hadn't said a word since they left Arendelle. The look on her face would have been suitable for someone walking up the steps of a guillotine for execution. Kristoff couldn't figure out what that was all about, but Anna seemed to know. Her glances at Elsa were filled with concern, and she would occasionally take Elsa's hand for a while as they walked, speaking softly to her. Kristoff took care to stay out of earshot. Eavesdropping would have been impolite, and he was already on thin ice.

They entered the area that looked like an amphitheatre, filled with large rocks and boulders. Only they weren't rocks and boulders. "Hi, everyone!" Kristoff called out, and suddenly the rocks and boulders started rolling to surround the three. Unfolding into a crowd of trolls, someone shouted "Kristoff's home!" This was echoed by the entire group.

One of the smaller trolls leaped into Kristoff's hands, showing off a fire crystal. Another tugged at Kristoff's pants, asking if he wanted his clothes washed. Kristoff swung the little troll around, then put him down, and explained he would be keeping his clothes on.

Anna watched this with some amusement, it was almost the same happy chaos that she had experienced when she had come here with Kristoff a few days ago. Elsa was trembling, though, and Anna sensed her discomfort. Her memories of this place had to be very different than Anna's.

Anna recognized Bulda, Kristoff's adoptive mother. "Kristoff's home! And this time he brought TWO GIRLS!" Anna and Kristoff looked at each other, and both put their faces in their hands and groaned. Like all mothers, Bulda wanted nothing but the best for her boy, and a good marriage was the goal.

Her husband Cliff waddled up to Kristoff and elbowed him in the ribs with a knowing wink. "Always knew my boy had what it takes to satisfy more than one girl! Ready to be trollfully wedded this time? A threesome is a little unusual, but nothing we haven't seen before!"

Kristoff shook his head and said, "No! We're still not getting married! And we have another problem we need to talk over with GrandPabbie. Is he around?"

In response to this, the crowd of trolls created a path for Grandpabbie to roll up and look up at Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa. "Your Majesty!" Pabbie bowed to her, and all the other trolls blinked. They hadn't recognized her. Remembering their manners, they all bowed and echoed Pabbie's words. "Your Majesty."

Elsa managed to nod her head in acknowledgement, but clearly couldn't speak. Anna moved next to her and entwined her arm in Elsa's. She could feel Elsa was still tense and trembling.

"Kristoff, there is strong magic here. Why have you come?" Pabbie looked at the two sisters as he said this.

Anna spoke up. "Pabbie, when I was here a few days ago, you told me about the ice shard put in my heart by my sister." Elsa flinched, but Anna just patted her hand to try and comfort her. "You told us only an act of true love could thaw a frozen heart. It did."

Pabbie nodded. "I can see that."

"But that wasn't the first time I had come here, was it?" She asked. GrandPabbie sighed and shook his head.

"Why didn't you tell me that when we came? Kristoff didn't tell me either until just today." Her anger was coming back, she tried to fight it down. If for no other reason than it was making Elsa even more unhappy than she already was.

GrandPabbie waved them over to a low shelf of rock. "Please, sit, this will take a bit to explain." The group did so, Anna and Elsa still clinging to each other, Kristoff a little apart from Anna. This also served to put them almost at eye level with the elderly troll.

"Your Majesty, I owe you a profound apology." He addressed Elsa, surprising everyone.

She stirred and looked directly at him for the first time. "For what?" she asked.

"When your parents brought you here so many years ago, I failed in my service to you all. I was not sufficiently clear in explaining what you needed to do to control your magic. If I had spoken with more clarity, your parents would have understood that the fear I was warning them about was YOUR fear, not the fear of others." He then looked at Anna.

"Because of my failure, you were never told about what happened. You lost your sister, and had no idea why. I had altered your memories to remove the magic, and make it seem that you had just played together like any two ordinary children. Your parents had the best intentions for both of you, but only succeeded in letting Elsa's fear control her, resulting in her powers manifesting poorly."

Anna thought about this. "Can you restore my memories?"

"Alas, I cannot. Too much time has passed. Your entire life from that time has been influenced by those memories, and they have been entwined with all your other memories. To alter them now would destroy your mind, would destroy the person you have become." This seemed to fill Anna with dismay, but Pabbie went on.

"The best way for you to recover your memories is ... your sister." This startled both women.

"What ... what do you mean?" This was Elsa, her voice soft.

"Your Majesty, you never stopped loving your sister. Everything you had done for thirteen years was to protect her from what you feared was a great danger. And she continued to love you, even though she did not understand why you shut her out. That love saved you both. Now, you have a great deal of sharing to do, to try to fill in those many years apart." Pabbie looked at the two with sympathy in his dark eyes.

Elsa nodded and squeezed Anna's hand.

"As you begin to grow closer, to become acquainted with the woman your sister has grown into, you need to share your memories of those years before the accident. Share the fun you had, and the joy you took in playing with your power to delight Anna. Yes, and even share the terror you felt when you hurt her. Let her share that pain, so that it may be lessened, and fade away until it is faint enough to no longer trouble your soul."

Anna hugged her sister closer.

For the first time in all those years Elsa felt a stirring of ... hope. Hope that she could really overcome all the fear and guilt and pain and that she and Anna would in fact become as close as they should be. Even after Anna's sacrifice, and the realization that love really could thaw, there was still a small, niggling doubt in Elsa's heart. Pabbie's words finally put that doubt to rest.

Elsa smiled, and addressed the troll. "GrandPabbie, thank you. I think that your words are perfectly clear this time. This time we really will heal. Together."

Elsa and Anna stood up. So did Kristoff, drawing away slightly as he did so. As introspective as Elsa had been on the trip up, she had been aware of Kristoff's discomfort in her presence. She couldn't have an Ice Master that was afraid of her, could she?

"I think we can hike on back to Arendelle now, don't you?" She smiled again, and reached out with her free hand to Kristoff.

"Come on, you can do it!" Her eyes twinkled. She was teasing him, and he knew it. Chagrined, he took her hand. Her skin was soft and smooth and cool, and the touch of it sent a little shiver up his arm.

Elsa nodded to GrandPabbie, and to the rest of the trolls. "I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other in the future. I'm looking forward to it."

The trolls bowed, rolled away, and left the three alone in a valley of rocks.

Anna was the first to begin tugging her sister and Kristoff back toward home.

"Let's go. I don't know about you, but I'm starving!" and her stomach rumbled to punctuate the statement. Elsa laughed and Kristoff chuckled.

"Yeah, we definitely need to get back to the castle now. Right now!" Kristoff teased her with her own words from the first night they met. She laughed in response, and the little group began their hike back to Arendelle.

Elsa hoped that Olaf and Sven hadn't gotten into any mischief in their absence. It had only been for an afternoon. How much trouble could they cause in that short a time?

Author Note for Chapter 3 - Take A Hike!

In which Kristoff puts his foot in his mouth, and then has to take a long walk that way. Anna finally finds out what Elsa was so afraid of.

In the movie, didn't anyone wonder why neither Kristoff nor Pabbie bothered mentioning to Anna that this was not the first time she had come to the valley of the trolls? If you download the shooting script, there is a notation in that scene where Kristoff tells Anna he's seen them do it before: "He looks her over, remembering the moment he saw the trolls heal her as a child."

So Jennifer Lee certainly had him realizing this wasn't the first time.

In any case, I thought this was another one of those little cracks or crevices that the movie glided over, and felt a story coming on.