The Duke's men exited the room with the food plate, all that was left being bones. They had stayed in the room, taunting Kristoff as he hungrily sucked the rest of the meat off of the bones. The two also allowed Sven to eat a little, taking the ropes from his muzzle. Kristoff had to give Sven a stare after he'd been released due to the fact that he saw defiance in Sven's face, indicating that he wanted to bite these two and make it hurt.

Before the two men had left, they went over and muzzled Sven once more, allowing Kristoff to take a sharp piece of bone that had snapped off and hide it in his sleeve. Then began the long, painful process of being tied up yet again in which his arms were forced behind his back and tied just as tight as they were before, if not tighter, Kristoff had lost the ability to tell because each time his wrists were retied, the sores forming hurt even more. Then came the rope that bound his arms to his sides, which was always an awkward and uncomfortable situation to handle. Lastly came the gag, which Kristoff was unsure of why they even needed it. Even if he did scream for someone, nobody was out this way and would hear him. He guessed it was just Hans wanting to make him as uncomfortable as possible and not wanting to hear him speak to comfort Sven, which made Kristoff hate him even more. He'd only seen the poor reindeer look as scared as he did then a few other times in their lives and it was disturbing to see such a brave animal look so frightened.

As the men exited, Kristoff lay on the floor beside Sven, listening for the lock to click and their footsteps to retreat. After a few minutes, he took the sharp bone from his sleeve and fumbled for the knot that held the ropes tight against his body. After what seemed like forever, he finally found it and carefully wiggled the bone into the knot and pushed, loosening it a little. He then began to move the bone back and forth in an attempt to cut the knot. After another long few minutes, the knot came loose and the grip around his body loosened. Kristoff then wiggled his shoulders and arms around as, slowly, the ropes began to fall from his torso. Sven noticed the ropes falling and sat up, whining softly. Kristoff looked over and tried to tell him to stay quiet, but realized his mouth was still gagged.

After the ropes around his body came loose, Kristoff managed to get his wrists from behind his back to the front of him by sticking his bound legs between his arms, moving his wrists to where he could see them. He found the bone again and used them to loosen the ropes that bound his sore wrists and, after a few minutes, had his wrists free. With his hands now at his disposal, he untied his ankles then looked over at Sven and went over and pulled the ropes from Sven's snout. Sven snorted a little when the ropes came off, causing Kristoff to wave over at Sven, telling him not to make any noise. He reached up and pulled the gag off his mouth and petted Sven's head, hugging the reindeer around the neck.

"Shhh, buddy... it's okay..."

Sven whined and nuzzled Kristoff, gently licking his cheek, which still contained the cut from where he'd been hit, now scabbed over with dried blood. Kristoff returned the gesture, kissing the reindeer on the top of the head and scratching behind his ears.

"Good boy." he said in a voice so quietly it could hardly be considered a whisper. He took Sven's face in his hands and looked into his matching brown eyes, "Sven, I'll be right back, okay? I need to leave you in here because if I take you with me, they'll hear you because you're so big, okay?"

Sven nodded his head.

"Okay, I'm gonna go out there and see if I can find a way out. You stay here, buddy, I'll be right back, I promise." Kristoff assured him, kissing his head again. "I love you." Sven licked his hand. Kristoff took the chicken bone and slowly inserted it into the door's lock, turning it until eventually, he heard it click. He put his ear to the door and heard nobody outside.

It was clear.

He slowly opened the door and silently stepped out, closing the door behind him. As he closed the door, he turned, going down the hallway to the front room. He stopped just before the front, hearing Hans and the Duke in the room.

Damn.

He turned back and crept down the hall. There was a window in a nearby room he could use. He made his way into the room and saw the window, which he quickly opened, stepping outside onto the snow. It was falling heavily now as Kristoff made it out, looking around the cabin for any of Hans or the Duke's men. He saw none.

Quickly, he began to run, dodging various trees, his face cold without his scarf to cover it and his hands cold without his mittens. The snowflakes hit him in the eyes, causing them to water. As he ran, his thoughts raced back to Anna and Elsa. Surely, Hans would come after him when he discovered he was gone and that could distract him from going to Arendelle.

Or maybe Hans would just assume he'd die and go to Arendelle anyway. So... should he try to go to Arendelle? No... it was too far away without Sven... he couldn't leave him. He stopped to catch his breath.

Where do I go?

He could always go home. Not to Arendelle, but to the Valley where the trolls were. It was far without Sven and without the rest of his winter gear. He'd freeze to death before he got there. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by voices...

"The blond one's gone!"

"There's footprints leading out this way!"

Kristoff's brown eyes became two sizes bigger as his heart leaped into his throat.

Damn, damn, damn. Why hadn't he covered his tracks? Kristoff turned away from the voices and ran in a different direction, hoping to loose them. He ran for what seemed like forever, hearing the men calling to each other behind him. The fear of what they would do to him made him run even faster. Sure, he'd felt a lot of pain from a lot of people through his life, but this situation was by far the worst. The next thing he heard nearly made his heart stop.

"There he is!" he heard, his heart lurching into his throat yet again, causing him to choke. He ran faster, the snowflakes stinging his eyes. Blinded by the water in his eyes, he lost direction as he ran and suddenly, WHAM.

Something hard connected with his jaw, knocking him off his feet. Kristoff rubbed his jaw and felt blood on his lip. He must have bitten it on the way down. He looked up to see Hans just as the Prince kicked him hard in the side. Kristoff squirmed away, grabbing his ankle and pulling it with all of the strength he had, knocking the Prince down in the snow where Kristoff flung himself on top of him, Hans' hands pushing at his face and throat as Kristoff struggled to get his hands around Hans' throat. Eventually, he made it, squeezing the Prince's windpipe as hard as he could, making the Prince choke and gag as he pushed at Kristoff's face and eventually found a handful of his shaggy, blond hair and gave it a good yank. Kristoff screamed, but did not let go as Hans pulled his head closer and yanked harder on his hair, which only made Kristoff squeeze his throat tighter. As angry tears of adrenaline and from the snow fell from Kristoff's eyes, he could feel Hans beginning to give up as his face began turning red, then a shade of purple that scared him to look at, but he still continued until, before he knew it, something hit him hard in the head again.

Then everything went dark.

Hans gasped for air as the peasant's hands loosened from his throat. How had the bastard even gotten out of his room?

"Are you all right, boy?" he heard the Duke ask as his hazy vision returned to normal. He took in a few deep breaths and looked down at Kristoff, out cold with a stream of crimson blood coming from his forehead where the Duke's right-hand man had hit him. He was definitely out for sure.

"I'm fine. Thank you." Hans choked out, "Get him back to his room, now."

"What should we do when we get there, your highness?" the Duke's right-hand man asked. Hans scowled down at Kristoff and turned his head with his foot.

"Bind and gag him as you did before. Even tighter this time. And then tie him to the wall like you did his pet. He wants to act like an animal, then we'll treat him like one." he said.

One thing was for sure, now he was going to make every moment of Kristoff's life even more of a living hell then he had before.

The sun had begun to set over the North Mountain as Anna continued her search for any sign of Kristoff and Sven. So far, she managed to put up a good number of posters in the neighboring towns and even asked a few people if they had seen Kristoff or Sven. They said yes, but not recently. The air began to blow crisper than back home where Anna was and she knew it would be a long journey home. But she had Olaf to keep her company, who had been holding onto her back as they searched. If she traveled a little further, she would hit the snow of the North Mountain and the northern most part of Norway, where Kristoff usually went to get ice. In order to make the trip there, she would've had to left much earlier.

"I don't think we'll find anything else here, Olaf." she said sadly.

"Wait, doesn't Kristoff's family live kind of close to here?" Olaf asked, remembering where they were from when Kristoff had rushed Anna back to Arendelle after her heart froze. Anna's face brightened.

"Well... yes. I guess they do!" she squealed, her cheerful attitude suddenly turning more serious, "But if we go see them, we're gonna have to tell them, Olaf. And I have a feeling they won't like it."

Olaf shook his head. "Of course they won't like it, but maybe they can help!"

Anna looked in the direction of where the valley was and looked back at Olaf. "Hold on, we're gonna go pretty fast." she warned.

Olaf took off his carrot nose and put it in Anna's bag to keep it from blowing away.

"Ready!" he told her as he grabbed onto her waist. Anna urged her horse and took off towards the valley.

After a while of riding, she made it to the valley and got off the horse, walking with Olaf to the middle of the valley, all of them surrounded by rocks.

"Um... hi everyone." Anna called awkwardly, "It's me, Princess Anna. And Olaf. We um... we need to talk to you all about something."

Without warning, the rocks began to shift as they all began to roll towards Anna and Olaf. Suddenly, they all popped out and looked up at Anna and smiled.

"It's Princess Anna!" she heard Kristoff and Sven's surrogate mother, Bulda cry out as the rest of the trolls cheered happily.

"Yes, yes, it's me... now stop... stop please..." Anna tried as trolls began to hug her legs and grab her arms.

"She's just as beautiful as ever!"

"And she had a birthday too! She's even more beautiful now!"

"I love your dress, Princess!"

Anna tried to smile, but was to worried. "T-thank you... but, guys I need to talk to you. Something serious has happened. It's about Kristoff and Sven."

That shut them up immediately as each troll's smile suddenly turned to a worried expression as they all sat down in unison. Bulda and her husband, Cliff approached Anna and looked up at her as she bent down to their level.

"Princess Anna? What's happened to our boys?" Cliff asked, holding his wife's hand.

Anna sighed, "They went out on an ice harvesting trip last week and were due back three days ago. They were supposed to only be gone three days and... they've been gone a whole week now and nobody's seen them. They... haven't been here, haven't they?"

"No, dear." Bulda said sadly, "The last time we seen the boys was the last time he came here with you and your sister."

Anna ran her hands through her hair and grasped her forehead. She then realized that Kristoff and Sven were truly missing. She felt tears coming, but held them back.

"Then... they must really be missing... something must have really happened to them..." she mumbled as Olaf patted her on the back. She heard another troll roll up next to her and looked over to see Kristoff's surrogate grandfather, Pabbie, unroll.

"There might be a way we can find him, Anna." he said. Anna's heart skipped a beat.

"How?" she asked.

"Do you have something to belongs to him with you?"

Anna reached into her bag and pulled out Kristoff's old, ratty tunic. It still smelled just like him. She handed it to Pabbie who looked it over.

"Give me tonight, I'll see if I can find some sort of spell in order to locate him. It will be a stretch, but I'll do my best." the old troll told her. Without thinking, Anna grabbed him and hugged him, straining to pick him up.

"Oh, thank you so much, Grand Pabbie." she said, grateful for some sort of good news.

Hans sat on the chair inside the cabin, looking over at the roaring fire. He'd recovered from his recent scuffle with Kristoff earlier. The peasant lay unconscious still, gagged and bound in his room with the reindeer, now leashed to the wall with someone watching him at all times. His and the Duke's men had not been happy about that, but it needed to be done. Clearly Kristoff was more clever than he gave him credit for.

"Prince Hans!" he heard one of his men cry as the door rushed open. Hans looked over towards the door, not getting up from his spot.

"Is there a problem?"

The man rushed over to Hans, snow covering his clothes as he unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to Hans.

"Look at this."

Hans unfolded the paper to see a painted picture of both Kristoff and his reindeer that read.

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

KRISTOFF BJORGMAN

OFFICIAL ICE MASTER AND DELIVERER

HAIR COLOR: BLOND

EYE COLOR: BROWN

LAST SEEN WEARING DARK GRAY SHIRT OVER A DARK BLUE SWEATER, BURGANDY SASH, BLACK PANTS, POINTED TOE SNOW BOOTS AND BLACK HAT

SVEN

KRISTOFF'S REINDEER

HAIR COLOR: BROWN AND GRAY

EYE COLOR: BROWN

LAST SEEN WEARING A BURGANDY HARNESS

ANY INFORMATION REGARDING THOSE MENTIONED ABOVE SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY TOLD TO QUEEN ELSA OR PRINCESS ANNA OF ARENDELLE YOU WILL BE REWARDED ACCORDINGLY

Hans was quiet with anger. He tore the posters in half four times and threw the pieces into the fire as he stood up.

"Tell the Duke to ready the ship in the nearest harbor. It's not safe for us here anymore. We're leaving in the morning.

Any thoughts? Lemme know! Thanks so much for reading you guys!