Chapter 17: A Dungeon of Ice

Decker was escorted by a grimy-looking man through the halls of the ice fortress. The man would frequently disappear into the shadows, and re-appear with a new icicle to use as a walking stick, and each time the walking stick seemed to be getting bigger. Decker wasn't entirely sure what had happened with the Bandit Queen and the princess of Arendelle after their hypnotherapy session, what with them speaking in a language he didn't understand, and before he had a chance to ask his snowman friend to translate, the pair of them were being led on a march into the icy hallways. Every time he tried to talk to Olaf, he would end up with a face-full of icicle.

"Hey feller, wha—"

Thwack.

"I mean did y—"

Thwack.

The old Texan surmised that while Anna may be a guest here, the two of them were still prisoners, and their captor was not the sort to encourage conversation. Olaf was clearly shaken by this. The little snowman never tried to answer Decker's two-and-a-half word questions, and would always grab his leg and cower when their grimy captor started swinging his icicle.

That left little to do but march down the hallways. How many of these were there? New hallways seemed to branch away whenever they turned a corner. Where hallways didn't split, the rooms were guarded by ancient oaken doors—but every now and again the door would be splintered along one corner. Decker caught a glimpse through one to see an expansive cavern of toppled columns and broken ice bricks. Another one appeared to be a broom closet, without any brooms. He tried looking though some of the ice walls into a few of the rooms behind closed doors, but the ice was dark and cloudy—a dull grey hardly more interesting than the grey stone bricks that were interspersed with the ice.

Eventually they found themselves in front of an open door. From a distance, it was a welcome relief to see that some of the doors could be ajar, but when he got closer and could see inside, he was less relieved. It was clearly a cell. Small, dark cobblestone floor, a single iron-barred window.

Their host barked some command, and Olaf immediately ran into the little room.

Decker's eyes followed the little snowman, and he tried to ask, "So I take—"

Thwack.

He took a step into the room and heard the mighty door slam behind them followed by the latch of a key. His nose still smarted from that icicle, so he waited a moment before trying to talk with Olaf again.

"Alrighty mister snowman, what was that all about?"

Olaf looked back at Decker with a glazed sheen over his eyes, as he stared through the Texan. "I…"

"Hey, it's okay. They can't do nuthin' to us now. See this stirdy slab of wood?" Decker gestured to the heavy oak door, "It's goin' keep the bad guys out."

"I'm…"

"Hey, I know what you need." Decker reached down and squeezed Olaf in a warm hug.

That seemed to re-invigorate the snowman. He gave his head a quick shake before answering, "Boy, I really froze there, didn't I?"

Decker let go and gave him a look.

"See, there's a pun there," Olaf went on, "But I think you may have lost it in translation."

"No, I got it."

"Anyway, let me tell you what's going on, at least from what I heard. We're in the ambassador's cell." Olaf sized up the room for the first time. "But I don't think this has much diplomatic sway."

"So are we ambassadors or prisoners?"

"Both? I guess this is a new Arendelle colony. Which is weird, 'cause I'm pretty sure we're on Svalbard, and Svalbard is part of Norway, and Norway isn't Arendelle." Olaf made his thinking face. "But I guess it's okay, 'cause it's only going to be a colony for the next couple days. And Anna is in charge."

"Okay then. Ambassadors for two days, prisoners from then on." Decker leaned against a wall, then slid down into sitting position. "Why not."

Olaf wandered over to the door and tried wiggling the doorknob. When it wouldn't open, he pulled his carrot nose out of his face and stuck it into the keyhole, but before starting to twist it, he thought for a moment.

"Does this door really keep the bad guys out?" Olaf asked Decker.

"Sure," Decker answered.

"Hmm…" Olaf wandered over to the window. There was no glass—only iron bars to divide the inside of the cell from the outside world. Olaf stuck a hand through and wiggled his fingers a little bit. He nodded as if pleased with the result, then started pulling handfuls of snow out of his middle bit, and packing them together on the other side of the bars.

"What're yah doin'?"

"I'm escaping! Anna is in charge, so I'm sure if I could find her, we can get all this sorted out."

Decker gave him a skeptical look.

"I can totally do it! Help re-build me on the other side of these bars."

As realization gripped the Texan, he ran over and started scooping up handfuls of Olaf and depositing them out of the cell. Soon, all that was left of Olaf was his head.

"Uh, how do yuh want to do this 'un?" Decker asked, holding the solitary head near the bars.

"I think we can probably…"

"Nah, I think I got it." Decker cut him off by shoving the snowball through the bars, and onto the two waiting body pieces.

The resulting Olaf face was pulled tightly around the cheeks, giving him an oddly squished appearance. "Whoa! Head rush! Let me just…" He gave his head a vigorous shake and it returned to its normal, lumpy shape.

"So, uh, what are you goin' do if Anna's locked up too?" Decker asked.

"Oh, I've got that covered," Olaf answered tapping the end of his carrot nose.

"You can pick locks with that thing?"

"Of course. Can't you?"

Decker ignored the question, instead asking, "How'd you learn to do that?"

Olaf made his thinking face again before answering, "Huh, I guess I was just built that way."

Before Decker could inquire any further, the snowman had run off in search of the princess.

"You mean you, as the crown princess, learned to pick locks?" Kristoff was incredulous.

"What you have to remember is that I was in my room for a very long time. I was so afraid that I would run into Anna, and then freeze …" Elsa paused, "So after lessons in Papa's study, it was always straight back to the room. So I picked up a few hobbies. Anna did too. And while she would spend her days daydreaming of the great romances in her books…"

Elsa paused as she saw Kristoff's face. "Are you getting seasick too?"

"The great romances," he mumbled.

"Oh, um. I'm sure that was just a phase. For a while she wanted to raise an army to help one of the revolutions down in France, just like Joan."

"Who's Joan?"

"Oh, a girl from Continental history. She was Anna's hobby for a while. In the mean time I learned how to pick locks and draw mazes. I also tried learning all the European languages, but only ever mastered our Lingua Franca. Anna's the one with the talent for tongues."

Elsa stopped to look around the deck for Dasher the snowdeer. She must have been below deck helping Pebble keep an eye on Johno. Earlier, Kristoff had managed to convince Elsa that she ought to sit above the deck to help her seasickness. At first Elsa was skeptical—she thought time with a pungent reindeer and his equally pungent master would make her queasiness much worse. But after a few hours of growing seasickness, she was willing to try anything. And much to her surprise, she was enjoying herself, telling him stories from when she and Anna were younger.

"I guess that's why Olaf makes a pretty okay translator…" Kristoff was saying as Pebble popped out of an ice hatch and onto the deck. "Hey sis, so how is our navigator down below deck?"

"He's not too happy being our prisoner, But I think he's pleased that we're taking him back to his band of Bandits. He keeps mentioning this Kjerstin lady."

"Did he do any navigating? Or tell you anything about this fortress we're storming?" Elsa asked.

"A little. I guess it's kind of in ruins. Grey granite columns, bricks of ice and stone. Some of them toppled. I guess there's also polar bears."

Elsa stared out into the sea breeze for a moment, before turning back to Pebble.

"It all sounds so… and it's in an icy island in the frozen North…"

"Elsa?" Kristoff asked.

"I think I've seen it before… In my dreams that one night I spent in the Ice Palace. I saw this fortress, and a giant snowflake-that was also a beautiful woman—she was telling me that this fortress and frozen island was my destiny. Then again, when I escaped from my own dungeon and ran off onto the frozen fjord, that's where I thought I would go."

"Uhm, what?" Pebble said. She had missed most of the Queen's adventures, and was only piecing everything together.

"I thought my powers were out of control. I wanted to get far away from Arendelle, where my powers wouldn't hurt anybody. Somewhere like the icy island from my dreams. I even felt a force pulling me there."

She turned out toward the ocean, watching Moby pulling their boat to ever higher latitudes. "Even after I could control my powers, I could still feel that force pulling me northward. In fact…" She closed her eyes and held her arms out, as if trying to fly on the ocean breeze. "I can still feel it. Some magic, some ice magic, is trying to pull me to the bandit's fortress."

"The Snow Queen's fortress," Kristoff put in.

"The Snow Queen? We're going to the fortress of the Snow Queen?" Pebble asked.

"You've heard of her?" Elsa replied.

"It's just a legend, but all trolls know it. In a blizzard snowflakes swarm like bees. And like bees, the snowflakes have a queen. A giant snowflake in the shape of a beautiful woman."

"Like my dreams," Elsa muttered.

She stared out into the northern ocean for a moment again, before turning back with determination in her face. "Whatever these legends of the Snow Queen are, whatever the icy magic is that stalks my dreams, none of that matters. We are sailing to Svalbard for one reason—to save Anna."

Kristoff pumped his fist in the air at the proclamation. "That's right, rescue the princess!" But when everyone, Sven included, gave him a funny look, he turned away, embarrassed. "I mean, uh. Yes. I agree."

Elsa leaned against the ice railing of the deck. "There's one good thing about these Snow Queen dreams. They give me a great internal sense of direction to Svalbard. And that sense is telling me that we're a little more than a day away."

As evening was falling, Olaf found Anna in a large lavishly decorated room, complete with an ornately carved wooden desk. Anna sat at the desk, and was weeping into her hands. As Olaf waddled into the room, Anna jumped up with a start.

"Oh, Olaf. It's just you," she said with a big sniff.

"Hey Anna, what's wrong?"

Anna stared down at the single paper sitting on her desk. "She didn't come tell me a story."

She looked down at the little snowman before going on. "Mama didn't come tell me a story. I was sitting here, trying to compose my plan to avoid a clash of the titans and get her to love Elsa again, but I thought she would come to tell me a story again, like she used to. And I didn't want her to see my secret plan, so I was going to wait until afterward to write it. But she didn't come…"

Olaf walked up to her. He was about to say something, but it was clear that Anna had more to say.

"She didn't come because she's not the same queen that sailed away three years ago. Her memory is all—" Anna wiggled her hands around her head in a scrambling motion—"And then she became the queen of the bandits. And I'm not the same princess from three years ago either. I've got Elsa now. And Kristoff too. And it's …" Anna bunched her fists, failing to find words to convey her emotions.

Olaf sat down next to her. "Well, it seems to me that even if you're a different princess, she still loves you. She flew you all the way out here to keep you safe from Elsa. I mean, we know Elsa isn't dangerous, but she doesn't. Also, she made you the governor general. So maybe we should focus on that?"

Anna sat down and stared at the blank piece of paper. "Yeah, you're right… Well! If I'm Governor, the first thing I'm going to need to do is appoint a Lieutenant Governor. And since everyone else here is a bandit, I'm appointing you, Olaf—Lieutenant Governor of New North Arendelle!"

"You mean it? Hooray! New North Arendelle—so does that mean it's a new Arendelle of the north, or just a new version of North Arendelle?"

"Uhh…both?" Anna responded. "Now as my lieutenant governor, I'm going to be counting on you for a lot. Are you sure you're up to it?"

Olaf nodded his head vigorously.

"Okay. First thing I need you to do is draft a Plan to Get Mama to love Elsa again. Now's your chance to really show that you're a love expert."