Author's notes: Well that was…freakishly long! Unintentionally by the way. In any case, I'm not too sure about this chapter. So as you read it, if you could please tell me what it's missing, not just the chapter but my writing and/or the story in general, I would be very grateful; if you think there's anything I mean.

P.S. I have to go to work, so I have only verified half of it. Please excuse all the mistakes you may find. I will fix them later tonight. That said, I hope you are still able to enjoy the chapter.

Also, Happy New Year!

Chapter five: Oddly Reversed

The next day's young rays of light brought with them a refreshed queen.

Although, invigorated as she was by the improvement of her health, she still felt a tug on the bottom of her heart at the memory of the past evening's events; Anna's tears were what haunted her the most. Nonetheless, the queen forced herself to ignore her doleful feelings for the moment, and lifted her body from her enormous bed to start her morning routine.

It was a feat, she would concede, to have been able to carry out every cleansing and beautifying task with a storm of thoughts surging within her mind. Exiting her adjacent bathroom, Elsa settled on the edge of her bed once again. She sighed as she finished drying her face, the small towel falling towards her lap and her shoulders following suit. A frown adorned her delicate brow as she lifted a hand to massage her right temple.

What was she to do? She wondered. On one side she had Anna to worry about, or more specifically, Anna's feelings to consider and restore. The queen wished the girl would understand why things had transpired as they had before simply letting the issue go; it was futile to dwell on it. And yes, Elsa knew it was hard. To think everything could have gone so differently if they had confided in each other, if she had confided in her sister, but what's done is done. Nothing could be taken back, so why bother filling oneself with anguish over an unchangeable past?

On the other hand, Queen Elsa was bursting with worries over her kingdom as much as any responsible ruler would. She was quite irritated with her dear tutor Erasto for having the gall to withhold important information from her; it was irrelevant to her if he deemed said information necessary for her ears at the moment or not. She was the queen, she had not only the right but the obligation to know everything that was going on in her kingdom!

Elsa stood, irked to the bones. She tossed the towel to the floor and hastily made her way out of her bedchamber.

Meanwhile, Princess Anna was of like mind. Although, not so much worried about the future of the kingdom, but certainly mad at herself for her latest emotional outburst and even more concerned for her sister's health. Yet, even with this intense desire to go to the queen, she had yet to move a single muscle out of the chair she currently occupied. The princess had just finished her breakfast, and was delighting – albeit unconsciously – on a feast of her thumb nail. Anxiety was eating at her like a million ants walking through her veins on their way to construct a home in her diaphragm.

She huffed, this was silly. She was thinking about Elsa, her sister, who would surely welcome her with a warm smile and an even warmer hug at the mere sight of her.

She smiled, lost in a recent memory of those actions, enough to fail to notice a few maids regarding her with a strange look. Anna continued to enjoy her remembrance until a cough startled her out of her wonderful stupor. Looking to the side she found a servant standing there, her green eyes shifting to everything but her.

"Yes?" Anna asked.

The woman spoke in a rather shy voice. "Miss, may I take your empty plates?"

Anna stared with an inquisitive frown on her visage. She wondered why the servant was acting so strange, to the point that she was rudely avoiding her gaze. The princess opened her mouth, set on asking about her impolite behavior, but a second before she could express her discomfort she realized all on her own that the weird one was her, who was still hugging herself quite fiercely and had probably been doing so since the moment she recalled her sister's embrace. The redhead felt her cheeks heat up as wildly as her hair, she rasped her throat hoping for a casual appearance as she released her torso and gestured for the maid to proceed with her task.

"Yes please." She said softly, keeping her eyes on the other side of the room as the maid cleaned the table and left.

Anna rolled her eyes at herself, even more miffed. The maidservants probably thought she was crazy, and she was, or she would be, if she didn't talk to her sister at once. She hit the table with her palms and propelled herself off the chair in search of the queen.

Apparently, it was to be an odd day, full of odd actions and odd expressions and odd occurrences, first for Anna's eccentric behavior at the breakfast table, and secondly because of the queen's sudden disappearance. The princess scoured her mind for a place her sister could have gone to, especially in her condition.

Anna rummaged the entirety of the room, even within the bathroom, but the queen was nowhere to be found. She walked through the halls, visited the kitchen, her study, the garden and the library, but still no Elsa in sight. Completely baffled, the princess opted to simply ask the servants if perhaps they had seen her.

"Oh yes, Princess Anna. The queen said she was feeling so well she was going on a promenade." The maid smiled, bending to pick a towel from the floor of the queen's room.

Anna frowned, "To where?" She asked. A day after a high fever, to where could her sister have the energy to walk to? Not to mention that the queen was actually taking a day off, her queen, her sister, Elsa! That was completely incredible in itself.

"She mentioned something about wanting to fix the bridge at the limit of the town square." The woman replied, exiting the bathroom where she had just placed a new towel for the queen.

"Alone?" The redhead's inquisitive stare pierced through the maid.

"Why, yes ma'am. What with her powers and all, I doubt she will need much help with that." The servant chuckled as she took a basket full of dirty laundry and left the room.

Anna nodded. Yes, that made sense. What didn't make sense was her sister's sudden desire to fix a bridge she had more or less already repaired. And even more suspicious, that she would redo such an endeavor with her powers when Anna knew very well the queen disliked flaunting her magical abilities.

Crossing her arms over her chest, the wheels in her head turned as she began to put things together. Her sister was not one to keep grudges, so it would be silly to think the queen had fled the castle as a punishment for her latest overreaction. Neither did Anna think her behavior had hurt her sister so greatly, that she now wished to never see her again; Elsa was after all, the most emotionally controlled person she knew (unlike herself). Therefore, those possibilities were pushed away from her mind, and not believing for one second that the queen had truly gone to mend an already fixed bridge, Anna could only think of one other reason as to why her sister would revisit that region: it was all a diversion and what Elsa was really going to do was return to the village.

"But no… no way". Anna said, snickering at her conclusion, unbelieving of it. Once again, she failed to remember that she was thinking about the queen, her sister, Elsa, not herself. She would be more likely to act so recklessly, but Elsa? No, never Elsa.

She shook her head as she left the queen's room. Maybe her sister had simply needed fresh air. Surely she would return promptly.

There was doubt tugging at the back of her head, but she ignored it. It was early, she would let her sister prance about and berate her later for not inviting her to come along. In the meantime, she would make herself useful to the queen by asking Kristoff if he had gathered any useful information from the sledge race.

As Princess Anna made her way to the troll village, Queen Elsa pushed through the vines of the woods located after the river in her quest to find the recently visited human village. She let out all the air she had in her lungs while keeping a good eye on the ground to prevent any unnecessary falls. Elsa was glad that her body temperature was much lower than a normal humans' because even though she was not sweating she could feel the sun beating down on the tree's leaves causing the air to be filled with muggy humidity.

It was hard to believe she had already walked that trek when every step seemed so much difficult. She guessed it could be indebted to the lack of attention she paid the route the last time she traveled it. Not that she was lost, she knew very well where she was and where she had to go, it just seemed so much farther than she remembered. Elsa held onto a tree bark as she leaped over one of its bigger roots. The trip would certainly be easier with the help of her magic. But no, the last thing she needed to do was boast her powers to a village that was already frightened of her.

Resigned to her arduous fate, she begged her feet to drag her further ahead. It took her longer than she had anticipated, but at last, she reached the opening that lead to the village's entrance.

Nonetheless, independently of what she desired, she couldn't very well walk in like she had done previously. That would surely not bode well with the villagers, and it would certain to be a hazard to her health as well. So, a different course of action was to be taken.

Hidden behind a large tree, Elsa glanced over the expanse of dry land before her. It was as barren as she recalled which, besides reaffirming the village's impoverished state, showed no adequate place to conceal the smuggling of her frame into the village; even with the lack of surveillance, the commune was uncovered enough that any direct action could be seen from its center; Elsa had no doubt that she too would be seen, since from her spot behind the oak tree she could clearly witness every single action taken by the villagers who were out in the open.

The queen scrutinized her surroundings once more. There had to be some way she could enter into the village unperceived. She just needed to get in there, to see deeper into the issues of her kingdom, to find out for herself what her ex-tutor denied her. How else was she to truly understand the troubles that burdened her kin? How was she to consequently amend them?

Elsa huffed, her breath freezing a section of the tree's bark on contact. In her anxiousness to enter the village she did not acknowledge the exteriorization of her powers, nor did she notice the crunching of fallen leaves to her left.

"It's hard to not believe you are the Ice Witch like that." A boyish voice with a grave undertone said. The surprise it gave the queen froze a bigger portion of the tree, a few solid leaves falling around her.

Elsa tore her eyes from the village, quickly finding the source of the statement in the form of a young boy. To be more exact, in the form of a young thief, one she had already had an encounter with. It seemed like it had been yesterday when those angered eyes bore into hers. They still held the wrath from all those weeks ago, but now his light brown almost yellowish orbs owned a hint of suspicion, the same she had glimpsed right before he had fled the scene at the towns square.

The queen collected herself. Then, mentally agreeing with his comment, she moved her hand over the tree's bark managing to unfreeze it; the ice dissolved into the air like a mist.

Elsa returned her eyes to the boy. "It's not very respectful to call your queen an Ice Witch." She scolded calmly but firmly, as she examined his outlook with the outmost subtlety. He wore the same rags she had already seen, with pants of poor material already torn at the knees, a red shirt with the same dirt stains that covered his arms and left cheek, and barefooted.

"It's not disrespectful if it's the truth." He challenged, a frown that added years to his young existence deepening on his brow.

Elsa disagreed with his reply and it showed on her own frown. She said in a stronger voice, "How do you know is the truth boy? Have you seen me act like a witch?"

The boy gave no reply to her question. The queen could see him biting his cheek, heatedly searching his mind for a comeback that he would not find considering she had been nothing but kind the last and only time they ran into each other. Elsa sighed, feeling bad for raising her voice to a boy that was having a difficult life and who clearly had no appropriate outlet for his emotions; it had not been that long ago since she too had lost control of her own feelings.

"I'll take that as a no." She said. "So then, care to tell me why you and your village think me a witch?" She guessed the boy also inhabited the village considering he had appeared so near to it.

"You should know." The boy said, the sentence loosing strength and ending in a whisper as his eyes dropped to the ground.

"If I did I wouldn't be asking." Elsa replied. She was begging to get irritated with yet another person who denied her information when she so politely asked, but she tried to hold onto her patience with the boy. He might as well be her only chance at finding anything out, given how complicated getting into the village unnoticed was going to be.

The boy's expression told of his internal battle. "It is what it means."

Elsa held onto her tongue, preventing it from clicking against her teeth exasperatedly. That answer told her nothing. It seemed like the villagers thought her an ice witch simply because she had the power to manipulate ice, something that although possible was quite dubious. Perhaps she should find answers to those questions from someone else at some other moment, she concluded, determining to inquire about another more primal matter.

"Fine." She relented, glancing towards the village. "This is your village, correct?" She looked to him as she asked.

"Yes." He replied.

Elsa nodded, thinking over what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it, "Listen, I can see from here how poverty has stricken your village. I hear it is my fault, and in a way the fact that I could not prevent it makes it true. Now, I want to fix my mistake. I don't know if you believe me or not since your suspicion is evident in your eyes, but I would be very grateful if you gave me the benefit of the doubt, and even more so if you told me about its most insufferable issues." She finished, praying the boy would acquiesce her request.

Amber colored eyes poured over her, studying, seizing her. She stood, unmoving, as the boy's frown began to lessen in harshness. He nodded, an action that was almost lost on the queen as the boy's feet turned to carry him back to where he came from. He moved but a few paces before noticing the queen was not pursuing him.

"Follow me." He muttered without halting his steps. Elsa knew not where he was taking her, but she trailed after him anyway, not wishing to lose the opportunity…

Princess Anna would never admit to her boyfriend that he had been right, that her flats and dresses were as horrible as they were unpractical for mountain climbing, but she would admit to herself that her feet were killing her and that her dress was in the process of helping with that for the third time as she tripped over yet another branch. She took a deep breath, wiping her brow and lifting her leg as high as it could go to reach the last rock to the troll's yard; the other road, the one to the village, had not been this uneven.

She brushed her skirt when she finally reached level ground, taking a few more minutes to breathe deeply and calm her rapidly beating heart.

"I need to work out more." She muttered moving to cross the expanse of what worked as the portico and entrance to the Troll Village.

The foyer was plain, lacking the rocks of varying sizes it usually held; probably because there was still daylight and the trolls were nocturne creatures. She entered the covert commune, obscured to human eyes whether in daylight or moonlight for the small houses were inserted within the stocks of the trees. The princess swam between them, searching for one in particular, a tree taller and wider than the rest. It was located at the end of the village, having been sculpted on recent times at the addition of a new and different kind of denizen.

She saw him before he saw her, bending over the small flowers that adorned the circumference of his tree house. Kristoff worked diligently on his small garden while Sven rested under a nearby shade.

"Hey Kristoff!" She called when she considered herself near enough. Her hands intertwined behind her and her back slightly bended towards him. The smile on her face belied her accomplished intention: to scare the wits out of him with the sudden sound of her voice.

The blond young man fell, the sound of Sven's whiny laughter resounding through the woods as loudly as the contact of his rear with the hard ground.

He looked towards the origin of his surprise and got an even bigger surprise at the sight of his girlfriend. His irritation instantly disappeared and he rose from the ground, dropping his instruments and lifting a smile.

"Anna!" He grinned, delighted at her visit. He opened his arms to engulf her in a big hug, which she returned just as fiercely. "What are you doing here?"

The question was posed to satiate a superficial curiosity; he cared very little for the answer since what was important was that she was there. Nonetheless, he would learn that sometimes it was better to appreciate the end and ignore the means, especially when the why's could sting your heart for days.

Anna giggled as the tall man settled her on the ground. She untangled herself from him before answering, "Well, I wanted to know if you had any info for me." She said, aligning her skirt.

The words stirred within his head for a short while, "Oh...You mean about the village." He mumbled dejectedly. His demeanor dropped as fast as the tools he had forgotten on the ground behind him when he realized that she had not come all that way to simply see him; her true motives had little to do with him.

"Yes!" Anna nodded eagerly. Her expectant gaze failed to see the disappointment in his visage.

Kristoff turned, picking the discarded tools and returning to his work. He kneeled beside some moss that was growing around the roots of his house. "No, I didn't hear anything, and the few guys that I asked knew even less." He uprooted the undesired plant and threw it over onto Sven's head. The reindeer awoke startled, his horns spinning from side to side in alarm. At finding nothing out of the ordinary, he retook his posture to continue sleeping. Kristoff shook his head, amused at his friend's aloofness.

"Really? Nothing at all?" Anna persisted right after Sven had retaken his nap. She moved to sit on a log that was close by, setting her right elbow on her thigh to rest her cheek upon her hand. Her sigh carried her disillusion at the outcome of his endeavor.

Kristoff rose to his feet and dusted his hands against each other. He took a sit beside Anna and laid his arm over her small shoulders, squeezing them in an effort to bring her some comfort.

"I'm sorry Anna, but it's hard to get information out of men trapped by the excitement of a sledge race." His voice took a slightly excited tone, as if he was recalling the exhilaration of the event. Anna's pout diminished at the childlike glint in his eyes. A smile started to replace it, but then Kristoff had to add, "Besides, Grandpappi says it's best if we don't meddle in this affair." He shrugged.

The lighting like speed in which Anna twisted her head towards him would forever be ingrained within his mind as would the most frightening and bizarre expression he had even seen her make. Somehow, Anna had managed to pull her eyebrows as together and as deeply into her nose as possible while widening her eyes into that arch. She looked both furious and shocked. It would have been funny, even made Kristoff laugh, had she not seemed to him dementedly enraged.

"Grandpappi told you we shouldn't meddle?" She couldn't believe this, it had not been enough for him to ruin their childhood, now he wanted to ruin their kingdom as well!

Kristoff leaned back and away from her, scared to the bones by her abrupt, angered outburst. As he stared and gulped down his fear, he debated between trying to placate her and running for his life.

"Why?" Anna leaned towards him, like a predator. If she had been her sister she would have kept calm, if she had been a younger Anna she would have accepted his answer as just another closed door on her face, but not now. Present Anna pushed doors open and kept them ajar with her sister's help, this Anna would not allow a troll to slam another door on her face, even if that troll was Grandpappi.

Kristoff stuttered, searching for an answer that he had not received. " Ah, well, because…"

"Because it was not his business just as it is not of your immediate concern Princess Anna." A crusty authoritarian voice answered.

Kristoff and Anna looked ahead to find precisely the one they were speaking off, Grandpappi. His body almost completely camouflaged by the rock he was resting upon. It had the same color of his rocky skin, so that only moving hands and his hairy head could be well discerned. His dark eyes were focused on a smaller rock he seemed to be carving, the form of the sculpture to incomplete to be guessed by the princess. Not that she cared much for that, she was too preoccupied by not believing her own luck. From all the trolls in the village he had to be the one to suffer from insomnia on that particular day.

Do not get her wrong, Anna did not hate Grandpappi or Erasto or whatever was his real name (mostly because the princess had never hated anything), yet the intense feeling of dislike she was feeling in that precise moment could have fooled anyone, even herself.

"How can it not be of my concern when you clearly acknowledged that I am the princess?" Anna growled.

"I see you are still mad." Grandpappi commented, filing what would soon be peak.

"Of course I am!" She shouted, but berated herself a second later. Kristoff was here, and this was still his Grandpappi; she didn't want to offend her boyfriend. And as mad as she was towards Grandpappi and as much as she wanted to insult him for all the forest to hear, her upbringing prevented her from letting it all out.

"Why?" Grandpappi shrugged, carving deeper into some feathers.

Kristoff's silent stare jumped from Anna to his Grandpappi in rapid succession. He had no idea of why they were having such a heated argument, the last time they saw each other they had shared laughs and traded compliments.

But that was exactly the problem. Last time, and all the times before, Anna had come up to that mountain with a smile on her face and a loving heart. She had shared in the confidence Kristoff granted his love-knowing family since his childhood. And in return, she had been deceived like a naive child. Here was the eldest, the wisest of the trolls, playing her like a fool.

"I trusted you." It pained her to confess. Anger and hurt bubbling from her chest she felt the prick of tears in her eyes. She could not believe she had been so stupid to think him so grand, so good above everything else. He was nothing of the sort. He had managed to convince her sister to stay away from her and while her anger towards her sister's poor judgment had completely disappeared (she would not hold her accountable for what she did as a child), it would take much longer before she could look at Grandpappi in the same light; perhaps even forever.

"I understand my child, and I accept it." He said, dusting the rock residue from the small sculpture. He deposited his black eyes on her and saw her clenched jaw, the intrusive tears in her eyes, the tight grasp she had on her skirt. The elder troll felt his heart constrict, just like it had for little Elsa when her blue eyes shined with restrained sadness. Still, he would forever believe that he had done what he thought best, at the cost of their solitude yes, but at the gain of their lives. How long would the little princesses have lasted together and well, had they scurried around the castle releasing Elsa's uncontrollable powers? Nothing, he was sure, death or enslaved they would be now. Therefore, if her hatred was to be his recompense, then so be it. With a heavy heart he would gladly take it.

His reply though, did nothing but ignite the sorrowful flame within her. "You are making the same mistake again you know?" She spat.

Grandpappi shook his head. He blew on the sculpture and threw it in her direction. Anna's hand stretched, catching it on instinct. "I don't believe that. I made no mistake in the first place."

The rock made sculpture was sufficiently hard to acquire no dent under her crushing hand. She huffed, "You are one of those who never thinks he's wrong." Originally meant to be a question, it came out as more of a statement.

"That's not true, but I am rarely wrong." He said.

With that reply, Anna had had enough of his arrogant attitude. She rose from the log and, numb to her boyfriend's call as well as the stab of pointy wings on her left palm, stomped her way out of the troll's village.

On the contrary, with careful steps and rapid glances to her surroundings, Elsa climbed the three riven planks (skipping the missing middle one) that lead to the boy's small cottage. She halted on the narrow lobby in front of some pink curtains that worked as the cabin's door.

"May I come in?" She asked the drapery, having lost the boy within the house.

"Like you said, you are the queen." She heard the boy say from the other side of the curtains. His voice sounded grouchy but distant, like he was concentrating on something else; probably related to the clanks the queen could hear from her position.

"Yes but, this is your home." She replied. The clattering ceased and for exception of the light chirping of insects nothing could be heard. The queen neared the curtain, trying to see through the tears and slits into the cabin. She was about to slide a part to the side when a head protruded from between them reaping a quickly stifled shriek from the queen.

"Shussh! And come in, quick, we don't want to the neighbors to see you." The boy demanded and Elsa, with a furtive glance behind her, abided his demand.

The inside of the cottage was as bare as its exterior. The furniture consisted of three small chairs settled against the wall to her left: the smallest one kept only its pink color around the base of the seat with one white daisy on its center, a slightly taller one lacked its backrest, and the third and farthest from the queen had no legs, its base resting directly on the floor. Besides that there was a thick blanket on a corner by the door, but there were no tables or trinkets or any other sort of things expected within a home.

The queen watched as the tuft of black hair bustled in what appeared to be the kitchen of the cabin. The boy took a cup that was resting on the counter that also accommodated the sink and the stove. He rinsed it under the faucet and dried it with an old rug before dropping the contents of a boiling pot into it.

Elsa stared as he offered the cup to her. "It's hot tea." He said, placing it on her opened palms. A drop that escaped from a dent on the mug burned her finger. She ignored it though, and showed her appreciation by thanking him and drinking what appeared to be green tea.

"I'm sorry I don't have a place for you to sit." He grumbled, settling on the floor.

"That's alright." She replied, wondering if the juvenile frown on his face ever left him. She supposed not, considering the life he lead and the weight he had in his shoulders if the two extra chairs meant he had siblings to take care of.

Elsa leaned against the wall as she drank her surprisingly delicious tea; even at her palace she rarely tasted tea that good. Through the wider slits on the wooden planks of the opposite wall, she could see a section of the rest of the village. It was hard to individualize the houses when they were all painted in the same poverty. Grass rimmed everything that was not covered by dirt and the stench of the loosed animals reached them even within the boy's small cottage, which was situated at the border of the village.

The sight was appalling to her as queen and as co-citizen. She could take it no longer, and it showed in her determined eyes when she turned to speak to the boy. "Tell me, from all of the necessities you have here, which are the most immediate?"

The boy, already decided on giving the queen the requested benefit of the doubt and therefore willing to help her in her quest, bit her lip in consideration of her question.

"Food." He stated first and foremost. The queen nodded, having already prioritized that one. "And water and tools for constructing better houses and…" He stopped in his listing, seeming to have reached an item harder to name.

"And?" Elsa urged.

The boy's eyes shifted from the queen to the crystal-less window and back again, pensive of his next action. Suddenly, he rose from the floor. "I'll show you." He said, walking towards the curtain-like-door. Elsa pulled herself from the wall promptly, and not knowing what else to do with the cup, left it on the window frame, hurrying to follow the boy out of the cabin.

They scurried around the backs of the houses, hiding behind empty barrels when a villager randomly appeared; luckily for her, most men were out hunting while the majority of women concentrated on performing different types of housework. Through the windows, the boy showed Elsa the scarcity of domestic items each decaying cabin contained; few had little more than his. And behind a cow, Elsa viewed the difficulty only one well presented for an entire village. The food, as the boy had mentioned, was one of the most crucial problems the village possessed. Oddly enough, the children were the most eager to share their petty rations, while the adults protected their portions like feral animals distributing them only within the closest of their family.

And poverty makes people desperate, a truth Elsa had always known yet had never had the displeasure of seeing in person. That would change that evening.

When they had rounded the entirety of the small village, the boy told the queen it was time for her to see his worst fear. The sky's blue was beginning to merge with a light orange and the queen could only wonder what necessity had to wait until a specific hour to not just be needed, but feared.

It was harder for her to squeeze between the wooden fence and the last house at the end of the village than for the thin boy that lead her, but she managed to do so after one last hard push that tore the end of her dress.

"Shh." The boy hissed, pulling her to crouch beside him behind an old slumped carriage.

Elsa looked above the coach but she saw nothing in the shadowed expanse between the back of the farthest houses and the fence. Until she heard it, a muffled scream, the sound of hard footsteps and the dragging of lighters ones, the grunting and angered muttering of deep male voices and the cry of a woman who was subsequently harshly thrown on the ground.

The queen's eyes widened, her mouth hung and her breathing ceased. She watched, aghast, as one of the men took a step towards the woman who scrambled backwards to get away from him. The tears in her eyes spoke of her fear but the grasp she had on a small pouch pressed against her chest spoke of her stubbornness.

"Just give it to us." A redheaded man demanded, his open palm facing up.

"No! I need this, I have a child!" The woman cried. She shook her head vehemently and pushed the bad deeper into her torso as if she wanted her body to swallow it.

"Yeah? I have two, Richard here has three, and James has a newborn. So who do you think needs it more?" The shorthaired redhead spat, pointing to each of his companions respectively.

"I do, because is my money!" The tremble of her jaw made no dent in her infuriated glare.

"Not anymore." His crimson beard shook along with his head. He gestured to the man on his right, a tall broad shouldered building of a man who's tanned muscled shined as much as his shaved scalp. "James."

The man nodded, moving to stand before the woman. In an abrupt grasp he had her hanging from her maroon hair. Elsa was livid, enough to almost reveal herself in an impulsive move to aid the crying woman. The boy however, did not allow her to get far, much less to unveil their existence. He yanked as hard as he could on the queen's short cape succeeding in keeping her behind the carriage.

"Let go boy! She needs help!" She hissed, wrenching her cape for his grasp.

"You are only here to watch!" He whisper-shouted back. "What do you think will happen if they see you, if they see you here with me?" He added, angrily pointing at himself.

Elsa swallowed her retorts as well as her intentions, he was right. In a village as small and desperate as this one, his actions would be considered treason. And in sight of what she had just witnessed, she could only imagine what overwrought penalty he would be given.

Reluctantly, she kept her position while the men ahead finished with their thievery. James ripped the bag from the woman's feeble hands and threw it towards the redhead who caught it with little effort. He released her hair and left her to continue her crying on the dirt. The trio left, ignoring the woman who begged for their compassion. Only Richard, the shortest of the three, whispered an apology that got lost in the arid wind of the upcoming twilight.

Solely when she had thought her sister dead, had Elsa felt so utterly impotent. Her nails dug into the wooden wheel of the carriage as she battled feelings that urged her to run to the woman or after the criminals that abused her.

She followed absentmindedly when the boy pulled on her elbow.

"I worry for my little brother and sister." He mentioned, leading the way back to his cabin.

Although the queen did not reply, she felt his fear very deep within her being. Her heart ached for him like it had ached for her own sister and as she slipped out of the village and made her way back to her castle Elsa vowed to do everything in her power to secure and better their lives.

In the same hasty manner in which the queen was descending towards the palace, Anna was tramping in the royal garden. The meaning of her muttering could barely be heard by the few servants who checked on her Queerness every once in a while. They gossiped among each other, telling tales of the queen's latest act of disappearance and how this had finally tripped the princess on her own lost marbles. Chatter that came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the queen herself. The queen however paid them no mind as soon as they answered her question about the princess's whereabouts; something their relieved sighs would demonstrate they were overly grateful for.

Elsa could not prevent the quirked eyebrow and amused smile that surfaced as she neared Anna, who she found pacing anxiously from the lilies to the gardenias. The queen waited, but when Anna kept walking from side to side mumbling about magical ice castles and whatnot without taking notice of her presence, Elsa decided make her presence known.

"Anna."

And the princess halted before the gardenias so abruptly that it gave the queen a little start. Elsa watched as she glanced up to the sky, as if she had just received a divine epiphany instead of her sister's calling. She tried again, and at last the princess's light blue eyes fell on her.

"Elsa!" Anna shouted, rushing over to her. Worry evident behind her exasperated gaze as she added, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Anna! Language!" Elsa chastised, her eyes shifting in search of witnesses to her sister's vulgarity.

Anna flushed slightly, a bit ashamed at her sister's reprimand, but she shook her head right after, believing to have the right to some expletives considering the day that had just elapsed. "Language? Do you have any idea how much I've worried over you today?" Her voice sounded like a whiny shrill that had the queen holding in her laugher. Meanwhile, Anna continued with her fuming, "How could you not have the decency to tell me where you were going? I searched the entire castle, even went up to the troll's village for you. I didn't know if you had been kidnapped or if you had disintegrated in your bed or skid your way to your ice palace or anything!" She expelled her arms to the sides.

Elsa could see Anna was quite outraged at her behavior, yet she couldn't hold it in any longer. Laughter erupted from within her, softly at first but rising in volume as Anna's expression morphed from anger to insult.

"How dare you laugh at me!" She stomped a foot on the ground. "I don't see what's so funny." The princess pouted.

The queen tried to catch her breath. "Really? You don't?" She prodded, giggles still escaping from between her fingers.

Anna thought about it, if only to not be left out on the joke, even if the joke was on her. Her eyelids dropped into slits and she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest as realization dawned on her.

"I'm acting nothing like you." She refuted, turning her face away from the queen.

Elsa chuckled fondly. "You sounded pretty much like me right now, except that I don't rant".

"It's because we are spending so much time together!" Not that the princess was complaining.

"So you accept it!" Elsa replied with a triumphant smile.

Anna growled low in her throat but gave in, finding solace in her sister's arms. Elsa returned the embrace, settling her nose against her sister's tresses. They smelled sweet, like petunias, which strangely, they did not have in their enormous garden; the scent calmed her concerns and she sighed, the stress of the day easing from her neck.

"I do not enjoy this change of roles". Anna grumbled against the queen's shoulder earning another chuckle from her sister.

"Alright, then let's imagine this never happened." The queen suggested, shrugging her delicate shoulders.

Anna disentangled herself from the queen to give her a suspicious glance. Sure, like she would believe her sister would not use this to tease her in the years to come. "Right." She said incredulously.

Elsa laughed, knowing her sister would not take the bait. She spun them both, her arm around Anna's slightly smaller shoulders, in direction of the castle. "It's getting late and this winter chill is not good for you. Let's go inside so you can tell me about your day and I can tell you about mine." The queen said a soft smile on her lips.

Anna grinned, enclosing her sister's waist in her arms. Her heart swelled at the prospect. She could think of no better way (or a more enjoyable one) to finish a vexing day than narrating its events to her adoring sister as she reclined against her on the comfiest sofa of the castle.

"Let's drink hot chocolate too." Except adding that, of course. She squeezed Elsa's waist.

The queen chuckled. "Okay."

It was much later, after countless of stories and topic deviations that induced infinite giggles, that the sister's parted for their respective bedchambers. Anna laid buried deep within her peach colored sheets, finding sleep in the warm memory of her sister's cold chest. She sighed, a content smile on her lips as exhaustion claimed her.

But it was hard to fall asleep when it felt like someone was watching you.

Anna snapped her eyes open at the sensation of rustling blankets at the end of her bed. She readied herself to scream, sitting upright and scrambling to get as close to the bed's post as she possibly could. Grabbing onto her bent knees she peered into the darkness, where she found a pair of pale brown eyes accompanied by two sections of a floating grin. The whole sight was very similar to Lewis Caroll's invisible cat from Alice in Wonderland; Anna would know, it was her second favorite book as a child.

The eyes and smile floated towards her, and Anna gulped and took a breath to scream at the top of her lungs. Yet, when they drifted into the moonlight that penetrated through the window, Anna discovered that the features were glued to a face that was attached to a head which was part of a very small body.

Before her on the center of her bed was a little girl, with chestnut brown hair, bright eyes and a big smile missing her two front teeth that not for seeming slightly psychotic was it any less sweet; she was a very happy and excited child Anna would think…or hope. Her fleshy cheeks and long shirt disguised her flimsy frame and she sat there, watching the princess while clasping a plush panda or a plush cat with bald spots, Anna was not be sure which.

The small child, who Anna suspected was not older than five years old, said nothing. The silence was beginning to revive the anxiety the princess had felt at first. So as to make sure the girl was not some kind of horrid apparition Anna tried to speak to her.

But before a word could leave her mouth, the child's smile dropped and she rose as if she had heard something from outside. Anna had not heard anything, and she made to tell the girl so, but the child had already jumped down her bed, ran to the window and proceeded to jump out of it as well.

Anna gasped and hurriedly scrambled out of her bed in search of the girl who had just thrown herself out of a second story window, almost launching herself over it in the process. She clutched the frame as her eyes sought frantically, but she never found her. Anna could not understand, a leap from that high would kill any normal human being! Either the girl had flown, or…Anna was more worn than she had previously thought. Maybe, she thought she was awake, but she was actually still sleeping and all of that had just been a very odd dream.

The princess backpedaled away from the window, carefully, warily. She retook her place under her covers and closed her eyes willing all of the recent events to disappear from her mind. She would continue to sleep and forget all about this for now, even if that meant sleeping while she was already sleeping.