Chapter 11: Escape Hyacinth's Garden
A/N: My traffic stats say that 9 out of 13 of you are from America, so to my average reader I say happy labor day to 69% of you.
Hyacinth was standing on a tall ladder, trimming some of the new growth on her cherry tree, when she saw Pebble leading a reindeer made of ice and snow into her garden. So, the troll was back, with a friend. The sorceress let out an exasperated sigh, and climbed down the ladder. Time to find Elsa. It would just be another gesture of hers, and the troll would be rolling away in an icy wind again. The queen was probably still sipping tea at the far side of her cottage. She certainly was taken by the chamomile that Hyacinth could grow, the sorceress thought with a smile. At least, she was pretty sure the queen was taken by the tea—there was a chance that was still the hypnotic magic Hyacinth had cast over her.
Hyacinth rounded the corner and saw Elsa and Kristoff standing. Both were staring at another reindeer, this of the flesh and fur variety, standing in her garden.
"No, no. This won't do at all. No trolls and no wild animals in my garden, pleas show these party crashers out," the sorceress said to Elsa, with a wave of her hand.
But at the end of her wave, she felt a tremor, as if the magic had ricochet off its target and hit her hand again.
"Anna," Elsa whispered. Then she turned to Hyacinth. "You. You've kept her from us."
"No, how can you…" Hyacinth began, waving her arms again. Again at each wave, her arms felt rocked by reflected magic.
The small troll appeared from behind Elsa. "Anna is in their heart, and your magic has no power there. They just needed to be reminded."
Anger was in Elsa's eyes, but she held it back from her tongue, ever the diplomatic aristocrat. "We thank you for your hospitality, but we shall be off now."
The queen, ice man, troll girl, reindeer, and ice deer all turned as one and walked to the gate. Hyacinth tried waiving spells to grab at their minds, but she could feel each dose of magic reflecting away. Well, that was her most powerful magical spell, but not her only on. She lifted her hands up, and vines of roses covered in thorns started crawling over the gate. That would stop them at least for a little … wait, was the reindeer eating the vines.
Fine, she pulled a ray of summer sunlight at the snowdeer. She would melt the beast, just out of spite. But with a touch from Elsa, pulses of cold repaired any damage caused by the sun.
She let her hands fall to her side, in defeat.
Kristoff opened the gate, and as they walked out, the queen turned her head back and said, "Sorry, but you won't be stopping us. We thank you for letting us know where my sister is."
"Yeah, I wonder why the Boreal Bandits decided to set up camp way up on Svalbard," Kristoff said to Elsa.
"Wait, Boreal Bandits? Your princess was taken by the Boreal Bandits? The birds never told me that," Hyacinth said.
Elsa fixed her a glare. "Much as I did enjoy your chamomile tea, I can't say I'm inclined to share anything with our captor."
"Perhaps I can help you. I was raided by the Boreal Bandits just over two years ago."
Kristoff and Elsa exchanged a glance, then Elsa answered. "Very well. A band of the bandits hijacked one of Arendelle's ships, by order of the Bandit Queen."
Elsa wasn't sure what sort of response she was expecting from this woman, but seeing her buckle in half and laugh hysterically certainly wasn't it.
"Bandit Queen? So now she's the Bandit Queen?" the sorceress managed between fits of laughter.
"What's so… what's going on? Is there something about this Bandit Queen?" Kristoff asked, eyes darting between the Elsa and Hyacinth.
"Oh, you two—you five, go to Svalbard. Find your princess. You're in for such a surprise." Hyacinth answered before laughing so hard she had to sit down.
"Forget it. We have a long way to go," Elsa answered.
Kristoff hooked Sven up to the ice sled, and was preparing to climb onto the sled himself, when Elsa waived her hand, forming icy chords to connect the sled with the snowdeer. He shot her a questioning glance.
"Sven should be able to set a pace that my ice deer won't be offended by. And it will be faster with two of them."
"Sure, Sven and I—we like going fast, but Sven'll keep an eye on your animal, isn't that right Sven?" Kristoff spared his reindeer a glance, then added, "Right, you don't have to keep your eyes exclusively on Elsa's deer, you also have to watch where we're going."
Pebble interrupted by grabbing the icy ropes, giving them a whip and shouting "Hya!"
The sled jumped to life and sped southward. Elsa leaned forward, hand held out, frosting the ground in front of the sled, both speeding up their travel and directing the animals.
"We're not going back to Arendelle?" Kristoff asked.
"No, straight to the ocean. We'll need to sail."
"Ooh, I've always wanted to see the ocean!" Pebble shouted.
"Uh," was all Kristoff could get out.
Stammerings of disbelief were all Kristoff could continue to manage when he saw what Elsa had in mind for their trip to Svalbard. The sled neared a stretch of densely wooded coastline far from any villages. Elsa leapt from the sled while it was still moving, herself sliding to a stop on a knoll overlooking the water. She raised her hands, held them steady for a moment while she closed her eyes. Then, like a conductor directing an orchestra, she began a series of ticks and swooshes with her hands. With each movement, ice began forming on the water, slowly raising and taking the shape of a twin-mast schooner. Light danced through the ice railings, and softly bounced off the snow-covered deck.
But Elsa wasn't done conducting the ice. In one last movement, she crouched low, spreading her arms wide, then jumped upward, hands aloft, squeezed into fists. At the same time, a white whale, as large as the ship leapt from the water, landing with a deafening splash. One last flick of her hands, and ropes connected the ship to the whale.
"So when you said we were sailing…" Kristoff began.
"Moby can get us there quicker." Another twist of her arm, and a plank materialized, connecting the ship with the shore at her feet. As Esla started walking across the bridge, the snow deer cautiously followed.
"Okay, but we may need to leave Sven here. Boats don't really…" Kristoff trailed off as Sven followed close behind the icy creature.
He glanced down at Pebble, who had her arms wide, spirit fingers wiggling, and a giant grin across her face. Kristoff could feel musical trills begin to flow from the troll.
"Oh your reindeer friend is smitten
By a love bug, he's been bitten…"
"No, okay. We'll have time for music numbers later. Let's just … Let's just get on this ship."
Pebble seemed a bit disappointed, but followed Kristoff, saying, "Okay, but I'm holding you to that, 'cause I've got a great music number building up for later."
Anna sat in a ball, and squeezed a hand-rail on the side of the basket as the balloon tossed about in the gale that was now propelling them northward. It had been going on for hours. At first she was terrified by the knocking about, high above the ground. But now she had a bigger problem. They hadn't been on the land since the previous day, and her bladder was completely full. And all this bouncing was making things much, much worse.
"Please Kjerstin, we really need to land—just a quick stop in the woods. Please!" Anna shouted over the gale.
Kjerstin shot her a menacing look. "Our Bandit Queen wants you to Spitsbergen as soon as possible." She punctuated her answer with a flaming fountain to inflate the balloon further.
"Oh, come on! No queen can be that heartless! We've been flying for hours. We've got to stop."
"Our queen is no… well, you can decide when you meet her."
Anna sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. She had to try talking, or something to keep her mind off her bladder. "So this Bandit Queen. I'm guessing you've known her all your life, right?"
Kjerstin's only answer was a look mixing confusion and contempt. So Anna went on, "I mean, if you were raised as a bandit, and she's always been your queen. What is she like?"
"Always been our queen? Hah! She was just some foolish woman who got captured by that sorceress down south. We rescued her, and kept her for her witchcraft. She had a power … could see through the eyes of magic. We used that to raid the trolls. But once we gained their magical crystals, she used the powers against us—convinced Askel to crown her the Bandit Queen. But there is no monarch of the boreal forests. Proper bandits don't have a queen and don't need one."
"Okay, well if you don't really like her, wouldn't you just love to make her mad and let this balloon down, just for a couple minutes—just long enough for a quick trip to the woods? Please?"
"Hmmph." Kjerstin replied. But gradually the balloon did drift lower. Two hundred feet above the ground they dropped out of the gusty wind tunnel. The rest of the decent was quiet, and they landed softly on snowy ground.
"Great! I'll be back in a minute." Anna said as she dashed to the nearest stand of trees.
Anna thought briefly of trying to escape, but they were in the great northern wilderness. And Kjerstin did hold Decker and Olaf as hostages.
Back on the balloon and after flying several hours more, Anna noticed that the land below them had given way to iceberg-filled ocean. They had left Europe, and must be nearing Spitsbergen.