Chapter 20: Frozen Sapphire

Decker stared at the wall across from him. It was dull and grey and icy, and periodically a young redhead girl would leap across the room with "Hiiiiiyaaaa" to try to knock it down. She would invariably bounce off the wall, without leaving so much as a dent. Decker thought about telling her how foolish it was to try to brute-force your way through a wall this thick, especially when Elsa's magic couldn't make a dent either. But he knew Anna, and she would not be deterred.

"Hiiiiyaaaa."

But if she kept this up, she was going to hurt herself.

"You know, them folks is comin' now. No sense breaking yer ankle to bust the wall, just to have 'em open the door."

Anna inspected the ice brick she had just kicked. She rubbed her finger of what she thought might have been a chip. It was just a trick of the light. She sighed and sat down.

"How long do you think it's been since they left?" she asked.

Decker shrugged. "Don't got a watch, do I?"

"But, can't you tell, like from the sun or stars?"

Decker looked out the window to a scene that was still impossibly white. He looked back at Anna.

"Okay, so no sun or stars," she replied. "But how about your innate sense of time? I've heard soldiers have a good innate sense of time."

Decker stared at the ground. "I told you. I wasn't a good soldier."

Anna lay down and looked at the ceiling. When she was little, she had been very skilled at waiting, watching minutes turn to hours, and then watching hours tick by. But at least she had a clock to watch.

"I'd guess they've been gone about an hour," she finally announced, sitting up.

"Sounds good."

"How long do you think it takes to get through all the hallways?"

"Dunno. How good is that snowman's memory?" Decker's time with Olaf on the ship voyage, then the balloon ride north, had told him that the answer wouldn't be a good one.

"Uhh," Anna's answer wasn't re-assuring. "Tell you what they should have done," She went on. "They should have left one of Olaf's stick hands here with us."

"How would that help?" The Texan asked.

"Proprioception," The princess answered.

"Propr… what?"

"Go like this," Anna began. "Hold your hands at your sides and close your eyes."

Decker complied.

"Now, with your eyes closed, bring your two hands together so your fingers touch. Index to index, middle to middle."

Decker was a little surprised as he brought his hands together when each finger gently touched the corresponding finger on the opposite hand. He opened his eyes to see a smiling Anna.

"That's proprioception. One hand always knows where the other one is, even without seeing it. So if they would have given me one of Olaf's hands and kept the other one, they'd always know where this cell was." Her smile faded as she sat down. "Then we wouldn't have to be waiting so much."

"Uhh," was all Decker could reply.

"Also, maybe me and Olaf's hand could play a game to pass the time. Like Thumb War. I don't suppose you'd want to play Thumb War? No, you've probably seen enough war. What about a clapping game?"

"Uhh," Decker replied again.

"Never mind." Anna turned away from him, clearly getting impatient. After a few minutes he heard her rhythmically tapping the wall, muttering something along the lines of "One, two three together—clap together, snap together."

The complete white-out surrounding Krisoff, Elsa, Olaf and Pebble had made it easy for them to sneak past the guards at the fortress' gaping front entrance, but it also made it difficult for Olaf to recognize the hallways we were running through.

"I think it's this way!" He shouted to his companions as they came to a tee in the corridor. Elsa had to squint to see through the snow, and tell he was pointing to the left. The four of them turned and dashed down the leftward hall. "No, wait. It's definitely the other way!" Olaf shouted again. They turned around and dashed rightward.

Elsa stared at the storm around them. Perhaps, now that they were in the fortress, it was time for the storm to end. She closed her eyes and took two deep breaths, the start of a calming exercise she would use before thinking about how much she loved her sister, and allowing her snow to melt. Before she could get to the actual thawing steps though, Olaf shouted again.

"This is definitely it! The cell is in the middle of this hall. You can tell from the heavy oak that all the doors are made from."

I guess love and thawing will have to wait, Elsa thought. "Good work Olaf," she said as she ruffled the twig hair on top of his head. "Kristoff, Pebble, you two go a hundred yards down the two ends of this hallway and set up a watch. Just as far as the blizzard extends, you still should be cloaked through the snow."

Kristoff nodded and dashed ahead, while Pebble turned around, curled into a boulder and rolled to the entrance of the corridor. Elsa ran ahead and stopped in front of a door decorated with green rosemalling. She gestured at it, and Olaf nodded.

"Okay, I'll work the tumblers while you hold the pintles in place," she told the snowman.

"Wow, you know how to pick locks too?" he enthused as he pulled the carrot from his face and tucked it into the keyhole.

"Where do you think you got it?" She smiled down at him. Her little Olaf. The snowman she had made with Anna all those years ago, animated by icy magic and sisterly love. And he had always watched over Anna. Elsa imagined that he would even melt for her. But not right now. She shook her head and brought herself back to the present. "Right, the tumblers." She grabbed the carrot and started working the pins inside the lock. "It's all about the tumblers…"

A moment later, with a clank, she and Olaf tumbled into the cell, to find Anna and Decker clapping hands, shouting "Princess crown together!" The two prisoners turned hearing the commotion.

"Elsa! You made it!" Anna ran up and gave her sister a deep hug.

"Anna," Elsa hugged back. "I'm so glad I've finally found, you—really found you. With no flaming tornados to push me away. I'm sorry I couldn't save you then, at the balcony"

"No, I'm sorry Elsa. I should have run off with you. I was sucked into my role, playing at governor."

Elsa let go for a moment. "Do you want to be governor? I never thought you had a liking for politics or bureaucracy."

Anna smiled back at her sister. "I mean I never did, but that's part of your world, so it's part of mine. So do you think you could squeeze a chair for me into your next council meeting?"

Elsa laughed. "Sure, there's room for family in my court."

They hugged again, but only briefly before they were interrupted by Kristoff running up the corridor.

"Hey, so... Oh, it looks like you two have … great," he managed to get out between out-of-breath huffs. "But we've got a problem. The snow, it doesn't end."

"Well I can do something about that…" Elsa began, as she lifted up her hand.

"No," Kristoff cut her off. "That's not our problem. In fact, it's good. 'Cause there are couple bandits at the end of the hall, strolling our way."

"Go time?" Anna asked.

Kristoff nodded, then called into the cell, "Come on Olaf. And bring your friend."

"Juh sweez Decker."

Elsa led the way as the five of them—six of them when they found Pebble at the entrance to the dungeon hallway—made their way back out of the fortress.

Idunn scratched lines into the frozen lake in the lowest level of the Snow Queen's Fortress. She looked down at them—they almost made the word Evigheden. How peculiar.

"Elsa is getting closer," Askel said from the far shore of the lake. "I can feel it getting colder. Her storm is approaching."

Idunn closed her eyes. She could feel magic, but couldn't see anything. This was unlike any time before when Elsa had used her enchanted snow. "It's not Elsa's storm," she finally said.

"Uh, Elsa, I don't think it's this way." Olaf shouted through the growing winds and thicker snow. "I'm pretty sure we came from that other corner of this ballroom when we were…"

"No, it's this way!" she shouted back "I can feel it… freedom is guiding me…"

The others ran behind her.

"Well maybe we should slow down a bit?" Anna suggested. "The white-out is getting thicker. Which is good I guess. Great for cover. But I can't see the little troll girl, and if any of us gets separated…"

"I won't let anyone get separated," Elsa answered. She could feel a force pulling her forward, re-assuring her that this way was the only way. "Come on, down these stairs." The force was growing stronger, overwhelming any other feeling. We have to go down these stairs.

Idunn could hear them before she could see them, with the racked they made as four humans, a snowman and a troll crashed down the long stairwell leading to the frozen lake. Close behind them, a snowstorm rolled down the stairwell, reached the bottom, and started swirling around the shore of the frozen lake. But in the middle of the lake, the air stayed calm.

She nodded to Askel as he took a step onto the ice to avoid the snow. He had been correct. Elsa had been drawn to this frozen lake.

Anna was the first to find her footing and step out of the snowstorm. Peering over the ice, she could see what looked like a throne in the distance. But much closer stood two bandits. Except one of them still wore the purple cape of Arendelle's Queen.

"Mama?" Anna called out. "What are you doing here?"

Idunn didn't answer.

"Also, what are we doing here?" Anna wasn't sure why she was asking Idunn this, but it seemed like the sort of answerless question she could ask her mother.

"Anna, I had hoped you wouldn't have to see this," Idunn finally answered. Askel had told her what she had to do to save her daughter. She didn't particularly like it—melting the ice on the lake, just below the ice witch's feet, to let the water freeze over and trap her beneath. It wouldn't be the demise Elsa. Idunn could feel magic running through the lake. Magic that would lock Elsa in a hundred-year sleep, like Aurora Rose from the fairy tales of old.

She disliked the idea of doing that to Elsa. But she despised the idea of Anna seeing this. She knew that Anna harbored a misguided love for Elsa. A love born of naiveté, one blind to the mortal danger she was in, when she was in the company of her sister.

Elsa stood up. She surveyed the cavernous room above this subterranean lake, letting her eyes also fall on the throne far away in the center of the ice. But her eyes settled on the two bandits across the way.

"Mama, I'm taking Anna. And we're going home." Elsa stood and started walking toward her sister. A slight limp pulled at her left leg, bruised from the fall.

"Don't you understand Elsa? You are home." As Idunn answered, she pulled a silver crystal from her pocket and squeezed at it.

Elsa looked around this cavern. A strange feeling of déjà vu settled over her, like she had seen it before in a dream. Something inside her screamed that Idunn was right. That she was finally at home in the cold icy north.

But Elsa shook the feeling out of her head, as she heard Anna answer. "No, Mama. We're going back to Arendelle, where Elsa is Queen. And when you're ready to love her again, you can come home too."

Elsa smiled and reached to touch Anna's shoulder.

"Don't touch her!" Idunn yelled, and threw forward her hand. A burst of silver flew outward, and as it hit the frozen lake, the ice erupted in a hiss of steam. Like a flash of lightning, a fracture shot through the ice at the two girls, a geyser of steam following the crack.

The two girls fell to either side of the fissure, but the crack grew onward behind them, and with a rumble, brought down the staircase. Elsa was on the ground, but lifted her head to survey the damage. The staircase was gone, but that didn't mean they were trapped. Staircases were her specialty.

Elsa spared a backward glance at Idunn. The Bandit Queen held one hand to her chest, a silver glow emanating from it. The other hand was held outward. She was panting, as if the magic was wearing her down. But her eyes had become crystals again. A piercing blue of rich indigo, reflecting light in shimmering facets of a flawless cut. Elsa threw her hand outward, lobbing a blue light at the fallen stairwell.

The light barely had time to shimmer off Idunn's gemstone eyes, before she twisted her hand and another geyser shot the blue balls of icy magic out of the air. "I'm afraid I can't let you leave."