Chapter 2

After three days of running Ellie had discovered a tiny flaw in her plan. Avoiding people made it very hard to get food. She had only been eating a few berries in the past three days. She was just so hungry that she didn't see any other option than to enter a village to get something to eat. But in order to do that she first had to find a way out of the forest she had been hiding in.

It took Ellie the entire day to get to the edge of the large forest. When she finally got out of the forest it was already getting dark outside. Though she could see a village lying in the distance the shops were probably already closed. Sighing Ellie decided to make her way to the village anyway and find a place to sleep there so she could get something to eat first thing in the morning.

Really tired and very hungry Ellie walked through what she thought were the village gates. She was too tired to walk any further so she rested her back against the large stone wall that surrounded the village. As soon as she closed her eyelids Ellie fell asleep.

Princess Anna of Arrendelle wandered outside the castle towards the castles gates. It was something she did every evening after dinner. She had made it her personal task to check if the gates were still open before she went to bed and that they were still open when she woke up. It wasn't that she didn't trust the guards or anything it was just some sort of ritual that she had developed after the great thaw. She had been doing it for four years now.

While making her way towards the gates Anna thought of everything that had changed since Elsa thawed the kingdom. She and Kristoff had gotten married a few months ago. The gates were always open and so was Elsa's door.

Suddenly Anna toppled to the ground. While being lost in thought she didn't see whatever it was that was laying against the wall next to the castle gate. Anna got up from the ground and straightened her dress. When she turned around to see what she had tripped over she was shocked to find out it wasn't a what, it was a who. She quickly made her way to the little girl that had caused her fall.

'Are you okay?' Anna asked concerned. When Anna reached over to the girl to touch her shoulder for comfort, the girl jerked away. 'Yeah I'm alright', the girl whispered softly. It was then that Anna really looked at the girl in front of her. For a few seconds Anna was too shocked to say anything. The girl was the spitting image of Elsa. Not the twenty-five-year-old Elsa who was probably finishing her paperwork in her study right now but the eight-year-old Elsa who Anna had built numerous snowmen with in the ballroom when they were kids. The girl had the same colour of platinum blonde hair and the same ice blue eyes as Elsa.

The resemblance was so striking that Anna couldn't help but stammer, 'E- Elsie?'

The looked at her with a confused expression on her face before replying, 'No it's Ellie.'

Anna mentally kicked herself for her stupid reaction. Of course this girl wasn't Elsa. The girl just looked like her. Though it was probably ridiculous but somehow Anna had always thought that Elsa was the only one to have platinum blonde hair and ice blue eyes.

Having gotten over the initial shock of seeing a girl that could have been Elsa's twin if they had been the same age, Anna looked at the girl, Ellie, again and realised that the she looked very tired.

'What are you doing here all alone? Where are your parents? Anna asked her.

'I don't have any parents, I grew up in an orphanage but I ran away', Ellie answered her.

'Why did you run away, did they treat you badly?'

Ellie just nodded not daring to admit the real reason why she had run away.

Anna moved forward to give the girl a hug for reassurance but Ellie flinched away again. Anna was curious as to what exactly they did in that orphanage to make this girl so afraid of touch. She wasn't going to ask though. Whatever it was that they did it was bad enough to make Ellie run away and by the looks of it she had been running for more multiple days too.

'I'm Anna by the way. I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come inside with me? You could stay the night at the castle', Anna offered.

Ellie hesitated; so far Anna had been very nice to her but what if she lost control over her power. Anna being so nice would only make it worse if she accidently hurt her.

Anna saw Ellie's hesitation but she couldn't let Ellie stay outside on her own and besides she really wanted to see Elsa's reaction when she'd see Ellie. Anna smiled at Ellie and made the offer more appealing by adding food to it.

'Aren't you hungry then? We have plenty of left-overs from our meal, we even have chocolate left from the desert!'

At the mention of food Ellie's stomach growled vehemently. She just couldn't refuse Anna's offer anymore. She decided to throw her plan of avoiding people out of the window for the night. One night couldn't hurt, she thought, she'd sneak away first thing in the morning.

'Okay', she told Anna.

'Yes!' Anna shouted startling Ellie but Anna simply couldn't contain her excitement of getting Ellie to come inside. 'Come on then', Anna told Ellie while she began to make her way towards the castle.

Ellie followed, still a bit worried about how she was going to hide her powers from Anna though Anna's chattering about reindeers and someone named Kristoff made her forget that worry quite soon. The fact that someone had actually invited her into their home while all the people Ellie had met so far had only tried to keep her as far away as possible, made Ellie even feel a bit warm. Warmer then she had ever felt.