"Hurry up, Kristoff! We need to get to Elsa as fast as possible!" Anna called out as she trudged through the snow, silently cursing to herself again about why her sister had to have ice powers, instead of something...warmer.
"Anna, we have been going in circles," Kristoff called out from under a tree, where he was trying to help remove an icicle that Sven had gotten stuck to his tongue.
Anna stopped and stared at him. "What?! How can you tell?"
"Look at the tracks."
Anna glanced around, and only then figured out that tracks that she had been following, that she believed to have been her sister's and had been so excited to find, were only her own. No wonder that tree looked familiar...the last three times I passed it. She face palmed, before stomping over to Kristoff, who had managed to remove the icicle from his reindeer.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"
"Because it was pretty funny!" He laughed, until he caught sight of her glaring at him. "Look, when was the last time you slept?" She stopped glaring, but didn't say anything, making him shake his head, exasperated. "Exactly. You've been going at this nonstop since all this started. If you don't take a few moments to get some sleep, do you really think that you will be able to help your sister if you are walking around, half-asleep?"
Anna thought about it, and had to admit he was right. I hadn't slept the night before the coronation...maybe I should get some sleep. That way, I will be able to convince Elsa to come back and fix the kingdom, without having to bribe her with chocolate.
"Fine," she said, pouting as she grabbed a blanket from the back of Sven, laid it on the ground. and settled down on top of it, "but I'm only taking a nap because I want to, not because you told me to. Now, hand me your bag so I can use it as a pillow"
Anna quickly fell asleep, and soon dreamt of when she and Elsa were younger. Memories flew by of them stealing chocolate from the kitchen, sharing secrets with one another, and playing in the snow; she really enjoyed those memories, especially when Elsa would build that snowman for Anna to play with. The carrot nose, the stick arms...Now, what was his name again?
"Hi, I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs."
"I love you, Olaf," Anna murmured, as she slowly blinked awake, to see the snowman, that was just in her dreams, standing right before her eyes.
"Aw, I love you too!" The snowman shouted joyfully, causing Anna to scream and accidentally launch off Olaf's head. As she scrambled back, trying to put some distance between her and the wandering body in front of her, Kristoff ran up, managing to catch a hold of the head before it hit the ground.
"Woaw, Anna! It's okay!" Anna finally realized where she was, but she kept her distance from the snowman, as Kristoff reattached Olaf's head. "This is Olaf, and apparently, Elsa build him."
"Yeah, I know that," Anna exclaimed as she got up, and began to wipe of the snow from her dress, "but what I don't understand, is how he is...is..."
"Moving?" Kristoff asked, smiling slightly.
"Talking? Dancing?!" Olaf asked excitedly, as he began to dance around to prove the point, causing Anna to giggle.
"All of that."
Kristoff scratched his chin for a moment, thinking about it. "You did say that Elsa was the one that cast the kingdom into an eternal winter, so why couldn't she create life from snow?"
"Because...because..." Anna stammered, before falling silent, not trying to think about what she was going to say. Because Elsa would have told me if she could. That only made her realize how little they had interacted with each other until the night of the coronation. That was the first time I had seen her in over 10 years, even then, she hadn't told me about her powers until she nearly speared some of the guests, including me. Was that the reason she wouldn't talk to me? She was afraid of me finding out about her powers...but why...
Anna shook those thoughts from her head, instead deciding to focus on the snowman, basically bouncing in excitement, as he was attempting to explain his love of summer to Sven.
"Olaf, do you know where Elsa is?"
Olaf turned and looked at Anna with an interested, yet quizzical expression. "Yeah, why?"
"I'll tell you why," Kristoff interjected. "We need Elsa to bring back summer."
Olaf's eyes lit up at the mention of summer, and quickly agreed to take them. As they started following him, Anna leaned toward Kristoff and whispered, "You knew he would lead us there if you mentioned "summer," didn't you?"
Kristoff shrugged, but the smile across his face betrayed his guilt.
They had been walking for several hours, and, according to Olaf, they should be there very soon, but Kristoff wasn't really paying attention; he was mainly focused on Anna. At first, they had been discussing of what she was going to do to have Elsa end the eternal winter, when Kristoff guessed he said something that upset her, because she got very quiet, and hadn't said a word since.
All I did was mention that maybe just talking to her sister might not be the best plan, especially since Elsa had gone so far to try to get away from Arendelle. He sighed softly to himself, and glanced at her, noticing how she kept her eyes downcast on her feet as she walked. She has not been like this the entire time I've known her; I know that it has only been less a day, but she got engaged to that guy in about the same amount time, so I have to have a pretty good understanding of her by now...right? He was about to try to talk to her to see what was wrong, when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
After years of living with the trolls in the forest, Kristoff had gotten very good at sensing when danger was coming. It had helped save his life many times, leading him to trust it as if it was someone verbally telling him to watch out. It also helped assure him that he was really sensing something when he noticed Sven's ears perked in alarm.
Kristoff raised his hand, and motioned for everyone to be quiet, thankful that they decided to listen to him. Glancing around, he expected to see something out of the ordinary, something that screamed danger, but all he saw was a steep cliff face on one side, and a treacherous precipice on the other.
"What is it, Kristoff?" Anna asked quietly, walking up beside him, and glancing around, thankfully realizing that now was a time to be quiet.
"I don't know. Olaf, how close are we?" He whispered to the snowman, who looked around, before pointing to what appeared to a large rock in front of them. "Ok, you stay here; Sven will protect you while I go ahead and see if there is anything."
Kristoff slowly made his way toward the rock, hoping there was nothing behind it, but soon discovered a narrow tunnel behind it. Slowly making his way through, the uneasy feeling that something wasn't right kept growing, until he reached the end of the tunnel, and gasped at what he saw in front of him.
There, glistening in the sunlight, was a magnificent castle, made of solid ice. Wow, now that is ice. Kristoff was about to try and get a closer look at it, when he noticed something moving in front of the staircase leading to castle, causing to crouch back down.
Standing well above Kristoff's height, it appeared to be made of snow like Olaf, but unlike him, it looked as if it was created for war: each one of its hands had large ice claws, that looked as if it could rip a man in half; all over its body were ice spikes, looking sharp enough to stab someone, and its teeth, its teeth looked as if it wouldn't have any problem biting through metal. I definitely don't want to anger that thing.
Kristoff slowly began backing away, keeping his eyes trained on the thing in case it saw him, when he felt someone tap his shoulder. He jumped and fought back the impulse to let out a scream, as he turned around to see...Anna standing there, enchanted by the palace.
"What are you doing?!" He whispered angrily, as he pulled her down, knocking her out of trance. She shook her head before focusing on him.
"You were gone for a while, so I decided to try and find you."
"Well, you should have stayed back there."
"What is that thing?" Anna asked, as she caught sight of the thing guarding the staircase.
"I don't know but whatever it is, we need to go back before it sees us." Kristoff said, as Anna and him started back down the tunnel
"Too late," he heard something growl, as a large hand grabbed his leg and started puling him out of the tunnel. Anna tried to pull him back in, but whatever it was, was too strong, dragging her out as well.
Kristoff twisted to see thing dragging him toward the castle, giving him the distinct impression that he definitely did not want to go that way. So, silently thanking Anna for buying the axe, he managed to pull it out of his bag, and embedded it into the creature's arm, causing it to let go of him as it roared in pain.
"Run!" He shouted at Anna, as he took off toward the nearby trees, with Anna following close behind and all the while, he could hear the creature, roaring with rage and anger behind him. While they were running, he saw Anna knock back the thing with a tree, sagging under the weight of all the snow on top of it, but before he could shout out any words of encouragement, or anything for that matter, another one of those things appeared in front of him.
"How many of these things are there?" He yelled in frustration, as he had to roll underneath on its sweeping arms, and continued running.
"I don't know!" He heard Anna shout somewhere close by, "But I don't think those were the last of them!" To prove her point, he heard multiple roars, making him cringe. Great, that's just what's we need...
Kristoff wasn't sure where he was running, and just hoped that wherever he was leading them, it would be somewhere that would lead them to safety; he couldn't have been more wrong as he barely stopped himself in time before running straight off a cliff, having to flail his arms to keep from tumbling over.
"Whoa, stop!" Kristoff yelled as he managed to grab a hold of Anna before she went running off the edge. Anna, then realizing where she had almost gone, let loose a string of curses that would have put some sailors to shame.
"It must be a hundred foot drop!"
"More like two hundred," Kristoff muttered as he glanced around, trying to find a way to get out of there safely. If only I hadn't left the rope with Sven, then I could have made a snow anchor, and lowered us down.
"Kristoff, they're getting closer!" Kristoff glanced back to see the trees shaking, as the creatures passed by them, each one a little closer than the last. He turned back to the cliff edge, mind racing on what to do. There should be fresh powder down there, but I can't be certain if there aren't rocks underneath; if there are, and we are forced to jump, we won't be walking away from this.
"Tree!"
Kristoff turned to see a huge tree sailing through the air, right where they were standing. Without thinking, he pushed Anna out of the way, only to have the tree catch him across the chest, sending him flying and over the edge.
"Kristoff!" Anna screamed in horror as she watched him disappear over the edge. She tried to go after him, scrambling for the edge, only to be dragged back as one of the things grabbed a hold of her. She struggled, trying to free herself without any luck, shouting so that hopefully, someone would hear and come help her out.
"Would someone shut her up please?!" She heard one of things say, as more of the joined up with the one holding her.
"The Queen told us to capture anyone that wasn't supposed to be here."
"Yeah, but she didn't say the anything about them having to be conscious."
"Good point!"
Anna was about to tell them that the Queen was her sister, and of course, Elsa would her to be conscious when she saw her, when something very heavy struck her on the head, sending her into the welcoming embrace of darkness.
AN: So, I know I said I was going to have this up tomorrow, but for some reason, I really wanted to put it up sooner rather than later; so, here it is, a day earlier than promised. Now, while I have your attention, I thought I would answer some questions that people have been asking me:
1. Is this going to be an Elsanna fic?
No, no it is not. While I can understand that some people might think that is going to happen, I am more leaning more toward just the love the sisters feel for each other as siblings, not as lovers.
2. Some of the characters sound similar. Why is that?
This is actually my third fanfic and first attempt at trying multiple POVs, so I will apologize if some of the characters sound similar. I am trying my best to make the characters sound different, but hey, give a guy a break and just try to overlook it. If it is bugging you too badly, then instead of complaining about it, how about you give me some ideas about how to differentiate the characters from one another?
3. I'm confused about what the history of the Ice Queen...what made her that way?
Well, I could tell you that now, or I could slowly deliver the details as the story progressed, giving you a deeper look into her psyche? Which would you prefer?
4. Where in the world did you go?!
Read the author's note at the end of the fourth chapter, and you will understand.
Since I got this chapter out today, I might take a day off, but I am hoping to have the next chapter be done by Sunday, Monday at the latest; I'm planning on it being an Anna/Ice Queen POV chapter, so it will be interesting to see how they interact with one another. So, thanks everyone, and please review!