Frozen Together Chapter 18

Five different people floundered through the storm, making their way across the ice of the fjord, for wildly diverging reasons. Olaf meant to get back to the palace, find Anna, and lead her to Kristoff so their kiss of true love could save her life. Kristoff hoped to save Olaf from the storm, and if he happened to bump into Anna somehow... he'd just see what happened. Anna's goal was to find Elsa and comfort her so this horrible storm would cease. The Duke's goal was the exact opposite – he meant to kill Elsa, in order to strengthen Hans' claim on the throne. He counted on the storm itself to finish off Anna, but if he had to end her life as well, he wouldn't hesitate. And Elsa, who had brought this storm into being in the first place, simply wanted to get away from all of them before she inadvertently hurt someone. Prince Hans would have been a sixth person, and he would have been trying to protect both Elsa and Anna against the Duke somehow; but he was lying on the same couch where Anna had shivered a few minutes ago, while a visiting countess with some nurse's training attended to the knife wound in his leg.

The first encounter was between Olaf and the Duke, and it wasn't friendly. One of the bodyguards saw movement in the storm and reflexively shot at it. His crossbow bolt passed right through Olaf's midsection. The snowman looked at himself and smiled. "Hey, you just gave me a belly button! I always wanted one of those! Sorry, I can't stay to chat – gotta go." He disappeared into the blizzard before anyone else could say anything.

The Duke didn't dare get too angry at his men; they were a lot bigger than him. But he had to maintain control of this scenario at all costs. "What if that had been some child lost in the storm?" he hissed. "From now on, you shoot only if you can identify the Queen, or if I tell you to! Got that?" They nodded grimly and continued their search.

Because he was made of snow, Olaf was the least inconvenienced by the storm, but he couldn't see any better in the whirling snowflakes than anyone else. He had no magical ability to find his way, or to guide himself toward his goal. It was sheer luck that he kept bumping into people. The next one he encountered was Elsa.

The queen had no idea anyone else was out on the ice, so when she saw motion, she went toward it, if only to warn them to get inside before this storm froze them to death. She recognized Olaf and realized he ran no risk of freezing. "Olaf? What are you doing out here?"

"I've got to find Anna!" he explained. "I have to bring her back to Kristoff so he can kiss her and make her all better!"

"Kristoff? Why him?"

"Elsa, don't you remember how the two of them rode together on that bobsled you made? Isn't that pretty close to true love?"

Elsa did remember. If the snowman was right, then maybe someone could save Anna after all! "I'll help you, Olaf! Do you know –" She stopped when she saw the crossbow hole in his midsection, complete with three little slashes where the quills on the bolt had gone through him. "Where did you get that?"

"That's from one of the Duke's men. He even gave me an 'innie!' Do you like it? I like it."

Elsa felt a chill. Hans had warned her about the Duke, his men had already fired at her once, and here was proof that those guards were somewhere nearby, and they were shooting on sight. She doubted that they were hunting snowmen. She had to get away, far away from here, before they caught up with her!

But Anna...

"I'll help you," she said again. "Where's Kristoff?"

"He was somewhere on the far shore, the last time I saw him. You know, it would be easier for us to find them if we could see better. Can you do something about this storm?"

She paused and tried to focus her power. All she could think about was Anna, slowly freezing to death, and herself, being hunted by two professional soldiers with crossbows. The storm got worse.

"Okay, never mind on being the weather girl," Olaf said. "I'll find Anna somehow!" He scampered off into the worst of the storm. Elsa tried to guess where the far shore might be, and pressed onward through the whirling snowflakes toward Kristoff (she hoped). She was fighting for Anna now.

A few minutes later, one of the Duke's men glared into the flying snow. "I think I saw the Queen, just ahead!" he exclaimed.

"Did you see anything?" the Duke asked his other guard.

"I saw something move," he said noncommittally.

"Very well," said the Duke. "I'm staying behind this ship's hull, so you won't shoot me in the confusion. Move up and see who's there! If it's Princess Anna, bring her to me. If it's the Bringer of Winter... you know what to do." They nodded in grim anticipation. They lived for moments like this.

Elsa's first warning that she was under attack was when a crossbow bolt screamed through the air from behind her, missing her head by barely six inches. She spun and saw two big dark silhouettes in the snow, far too close for comfort. "No! Please!" she begged them. She felt desperately frail and weak against them, power or no power.

Their answer was another shot. She didn't have time for a conscious reaction; she just lifted her hands in a reflex to protect herself, and a wall of ice rose from the fjord to intercept the bolt and hold it fast. It stopped less than an inch from her face.

"I don't want to hurt anyone!" she pleaded. "Stay away!" The first soldier had reloaded his crossbow and was outflanking her to the left, keeping her from running. It was only the thick snow in his eyes that kept him from shooting immediately, and that snow was suddenly even thicker than before. The wind rose to nearly a full gale. The second soldier got his weapon reloaded and stepped to his right, catching the Queen in a crossfire.

He never got to take his shot. Elsa had paused to prepare her defenses, and now she lashed back. A volley of knife-sharp icicles struck the edges of the second soldier's uniform and pinned him to the side of the ship, unharmed but unable to move. On the other side of that ship, the Duke heard the multiple thumps of weapons striking wood, and wondered what was going on.

Elsa hoped the first guard would take the hint and run away, but he did no such thing. He shot at her again. She gestured, and a wedge of ice suddenly rose up in front of her. The bolt hit the wedge and ricocheted away. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave herself over to an emotion that had never mastered her before: rage.

A jagged ice wall rose next to the soldier, then somehow slid sideways, hitting him and almost knocking him over. Then another wall rose and hit him on the other side. When he still tried to reload his crossbow, she fired a blast of cold directly at him. It instantly encased the weapon in ice. Undeterred, he dropped it and drew a short sword from under his jacket. She gestured angrily, and a thick wall of ice rose up straight in front of him. When he tried to go around it, three more walls rose up and joined the first one, trapping the man in an icy prison cell barely five feet square and eleven feet high. It was open at the top, so he tried to climb out. Ice is slippery. He could not escape.

Elsa remained tensely on guard for several more seconds, hands raised, looking all around to see if any more soldiers were going to appear with weapons at the ready. At last she let out the deep breath she'd been holding. Her tormentors had been immobilized. She had fought two armed, trained killers, and she had won. The fury of the storm subsided, very slightly.

She turned and stumbled through the flying snow, angry because the fight had made her waste precious time. She had to find Kristoff. She had to help Anna.

Meanwhile, Olaf's incredible luck at finding people in the middle of a blizzard continued. This time, it was Anna he found. For a moment, he was almost sorry he'd found her.

Her hair had gone completely white. Pale ice-like marks covered her face and hands. She was shivering uncontrollably, and every limping step caused her pain. It was obvious that she didn't have much time left.

"Anna?" he gasped.

"Olaf," she said, and tried to smile. "Have you seen Elsa?"

"Yes, she's fine," Olaf answered, "but you don't look so good. I need to take you to Kristoff!"

"No... no, I need to get to Elsa!" she protested. "She needs me! Can't you see this storm? This is because she's scared of something! I can help her!" She broke off; her teeth were chattering. "I need to find my sister!" she forced herself to say.

"Anna, if you freeze, you can't help her," Olaf said sadly, then brightened. "But after Kristoff gives you the kiss of true love, then you can help Elsa any way you want!"

"Kristoff?" Anna couldn't have heard that right. "True love? He doesn't love me... does he?"

"Don't you remember how he held you during that toboggan ride? Don't you remember how he used to stare at you on the ice-palace balcony? Anna, even he won't admit it, but he loves you!"

Anna tried hard to think. "But how can it be true love? He doesn't give me goose bumps, or say all the right things, or make me feel funny when I think about him!"

"Oh, Anna, you really don't know much about true love, do you?" Olaf said kindly. "Sometimes those things happen when you're in love, but they aren't what love is all about! True love is putting someone else's needs above your own. Like Kristoff did when he helped bring you to the palace, and then left you with the Prince, because he thought that's who you needed the most."

The realization of what he was saying hit her between the eyes. "Kristoff... loves me?"

"Yes, and you need an act of true love, so I need to take you to him, now! Come on!" He took off across the ice, forgetting that Anna was moving much more slowly than usual. She quickly lost sight of him in the flying snow. She tried to follow where he'd led, which quickly became a matter of guesswork. It felt like every step was slower and more painful than the last.

Now Olaf's string of luck ended. He passed within forty feet of both Elsa and Kristoff, but saw neither of them in the storm, and kept on going. Elsa also missed Kristoff in the snow. But the Duke... he found Elsa. He found his men first, and was unable to do anything for them. After promising to send some guards to free them, he struck out on his own, and soon found the Queen's faint footprints in the windblown snow. He grinned. It would have been more convenient if his men had done the job, but sometimes these things were more satisfying when you attended to them yourself.

"Queen Elsa!" he shouted. "Stop running! You cannot escape this!"

She turned on him, anger flashing in her eyes. "Stay back, Duke! I know what you are and what you want! You won't take me by surprise again."

He spread his empty hands. "You don't need to be afraid of me, Your Highness. I have no special powers to threaten you with... unlike you, you unnatural freak!"

"Everything you ever told me before was a lie, and I'm not listening now," she snapped. She turned away.

"But what about Anna?" he demanded.

She faced him again. "What about her?"

He grinned inwardly. He'd found her weakness. "She's wandering around in this storm, you know. I watched her leave the palace. I don't know why she went out in the storm alone... but whatever she's looking for, she will never find it. She's dying, Elsa. She is freezing from the inside out. And why is she freezing? For the same reason this storm is blowing. Because of YOU! If your freezing hasn't killed her yet, then your storm will! She's almost certainly dead, thanks to you!"

"No," she whimpered, and turned away. But she had no argument against his accusations. "Anna..." she cried and fell to her knees, then crumpled to the ice in a sobbing heap.

He smiled coldly. It was so much fun to break them first.

When Elsa fell to the ground, it was as though some of her power became disconnected. With an audible rushing sound, the fierce storm suddenly stopped, just like that. The wind died away to nothing, the flying snowflakes hovered in mid-air, and visibility suddenly extended from a few feet to a hundred yards or more. It was as though Nature had brought all the actors and actresses together on the stage, and had now raised the curtain for the final act of the drama.

Anna was as surprised as anyone when the storm ended. Far out in front of her, she could see a dim silhouette. It was Kristoff. "Anna!" he shouted, and ran toward her at full speed, slipping and falling on the ice several times. She haltingly made her way toward him, knowing that he and his kiss meant life to her.

Then she saw motion to her left. It was the Duke, who was stalking toward a quivering light-blue mass on the ice. He drew a dagger. Elsa...

Anna faced the cruelest dilemma anyone had ever known. She could try to get to Kristoff in time for him to save her life, knowing that Elsa would die as a result. Or she could try to save her sister, knowing that it would probably mean her own death, but without knowing if she would succeed. She had only moments to decide.

She glanced once more toward Kristoff, who was just a few seconds away from her. She chose. With a whimper, she turned away from him, and from life.

The Duke never expected any interference. He took his time, raised his dagger, and brought it down in a full overhand swing. A simple thrust in the back would have done the job, but this project had become much more difficult than he'd planned, and now that it was almost done, he really wanted to enjoy it.

Then someone threw herself between him and his victim with hand upraised, screaming, "NO!" As his arm came down, she suddenly transformed into solid ice where she stood. His dagger hit her on the hand, and to his amazement, the blade shattered.

Elsa heard Anna's final cry, looked over her shoulder in surprise... and saw the whole thing. She knew what the Duke had intended, and she knew what Anna had done. She watched, wide-eyed and terrified, as the Duke stumbled back and fell, and as a final puff of breath escaped her sister's motionless lips.

Elsa's nightmare had reached its inescapable conclusion. Anna was dead.

She forced herself to stand, and staggered over to where her sister stood motionless. But she couldn't give herself over to grief – not yet. The Duke was lying on the ice a few feet away, staring at them hatefully. Couldn't he even let her mourn her sister in peace? The knowledge of what he'd done, both to Anna and to herself, boiled over inside her.

She raised her hand high. Snowflakes swirled around her and spiraled together until they'd formed a long, viciously-sharp sword of pure ice in her hand. All she had to do was swing her arm down, and she'd pin that Duke to the ice with a blade through his ribs, just like he'd meant to do to her. Her face was a mask of hatred and fury. For a moment, she looked like the dreadful ice-witch that he'd always feared her to be.

But she glanced back at Anna, and her face softened. "No," she said sadly. "Anna wouldn't have wanted you dead." She threw the sword away; it shattered against the ice and dissolved to powder. "As her last gift, I give you your life. Now go!" When he didn't move fast enough, she screamed, "GO!" He turned and scurried away; she didn't watch him leave.

She turned back to Anna. There were tears frozen in her sister's eyes. She'd known what her action would cost, and she'd done it anyway. She'd given everything for Elsa, the one who deserved it the least.

"Anna... no... please..." Elsa begged, then threw her arms around what was left of her sister and wept hopelessly. Kristoff, Sven and Olaf, who had found the scene when it was too late, could only stand in silence, staring at the ice at their feet.