Between ducking behind bushes or villagers' homes and constantly checking whether or not a guard was in the path ahead, it took Anna some time to reach the gate up the eastern slope. Then she had to peek from behind a spruce barely taller than herself to count the guards on duty. She almost sank to the ground; she might be able to distract one guard, but three would be impossible.

"I didn't know you were playing hide-and-seek with us!" a friendly voice suddenly spoke from knee-level. Anna jumped.

"Olaf!" she hissed. But she grinned, no match for his contagious cheerfulness.

"Anna!" Anna held her finger up over her lips. "Ohh. Yes, we should be quiet if we're going to hide."

"What are you doing up here?" Anna asked, looking around the tree once more to make sure none of the guards had heard Olaf.

"Playing hide-and-seek, silly!"

"Ohh… right." Anna smiled. Olaf seemed to be getting along well with the children in town. A stray memory caught her by surprise. But it was only an instant before it faded away again. She had the strangest feeling that she had once played hide-and-seek with Olaf herself. But when in the middle of Elsa's blizzard would she have had the time to do that?

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but this isn't really a good hiding spot." Olaf's comment drew Anna back to the present.

Suddenly, an idea struck her.

"Olaf…"

"Anna…" he mimicked.

"I need you to do me a favor."

His face lit up. "Oh, oh! I love favors!"

"Well… I'm not sure you're gonna like this one…"

Olaf's glee turned to confusion. "Why not?"

"Because… you have to keep it a secret," she explained.

Olaf clapped his little stick hands, unfazed. "I can do that!"

"…from Elsa?" Anna asked.

Olaf's face froze. One second passed. Two seconds passed. After three seconds, his jaw dropped a little and he said, "From Elsa?! Is it a surprise…party?! But it isn't her birthday! Is it a surprise engagement?!" He hopped each time he asked a question. "But that didn't work out so well last time, did it…? Is it a surprise hat? You're giving her a surprise hat, aren't you?"

"It's not a hat. Now shh, let me explain…"

Olaf had never been so nervous as when he left Anna behind the tree to walk up to the east gate. He hadn't even been this anxious when he experienced melting! He could face just about anything with a smile. He could even walk up to the three guards, smiling. It was lying that was the hard part.

"Look!" one of the guards, a blond, pointed at him as he approached. He had been leaning against the wall with his arms folded, but he came to attention when he noticed Olaf.

"Hellooooo!" Olaf waved.

"You're the Queen's pet snowman, right?" another guard asked. This one's face was nearly taken over by his bushy gray beard.

"He looks kind of weird." The third guard had shaggy dark hair. He stared down at Olaf with cold, gray eyes that made Olaf gulp.

Then Olaf remembered: every stranger could be a new friend! "My name's Olaf! I like warm hugs."

The third guard scoffed. "Yep. Definitely weird. What do you want, little one?"

Olaf gulped again. It wasn't the guard, it was the lie. But then he thought of Anna's worried face. Okay, okay. He would do it for Anna…who was doing this for Elsa.

Olaf took one deep breath.

"I saw Prince Hans!"

All three guards drew their swords, exclaiming together, "Where?!"

Olaf nearly shrieked. Anna had not coached him this far through. Where? Where did he 'see Prince Hans'?

"Ahhh…" Olaf covered his eyes as if in great distress and pointed in a random direction behind him. "Sneaking around back there!"

"Move quickly!" the blond guard yelled, leading the others downhill. Olaf uncovered his eyes and watched them dash past. The bearded one suddenly stopped and wheeled around.

"Weird little snowman! Stay at this gate. Do NOT let the villain pass out of Arendelle!" he instructed before tearing off after his partners.

"Okaaay…" Olaf rocked back and forth on the verge of hyperventilating. He had just fibbed. He'd fibbed BIG time. Would Elsa find out? What would she think?

He calmed down a little as he saw Anna walk up to meet him. But the calm quickly turned to worry.

"Are you sure you want to do this? What if you do find him? He's dangerous…"

"This is just something I have to do, Olaf."

"Why not tell Elsa and Kristoff?"

Anna had seemed so sure of herself before, but now she hesitated. "Elsa would just try to stop me… and I've already bothered Kristoff enough," she said, looking towards the forest beyond the open gate. "Olaf… I need to go before they realize I'm gone." She started to leave.

"Wait!" Olaf lifted his arms to Anna and smiled. "Let me hug you good luck!"

Anna teared up a little as she crouched down to hug him. Had it been fate that Olaf had run into her when she was trying to sneak out of Arendelle, or just dumb luck? Either way, he had been there for her when Hans had left her to die too. She knew she could count on him.

"Thank you," she said, squeezing him just a bit.

"Come back safe and sound and soon."

Anna stood and turned her back towards Olaf so he wouldn't see her concern as she started for the gate. She had only been to the Valley of Living Rock the one time. Would she be able to find her way there again? Maybe if she had a map, she could.

"Yoo-hoo! Winter Blowout Sale—oh, it's you."

Anna smiled. "Hello again!" She was glad the path had led directly to Wandering Oaken's Trading Post. More than that, she was glad to have a break from the hot sun.

"That rude fellow from before didn't follow you here again, did he?" Oaken asked.

"Do you mean Kristoff? He's not really rude… he's just… socially challenged at times," she explained. She gazed around the trading post, amazed by the change in the display after just a couple of days. "Do you have any of that sun balm left? And do you carry maps?"

Oaken suddenly grew very stern. "Do I carry maps? Of course I carry maps." He ducked below the counter, startling Anna with his disappearance. Just when she started to wonder if she had actually offended him, Oaken stood up with his arms full of rolled parchment. He dropped them on the counter all at once and proudly looked up. "The sun balm is sold out, unfortunately… but since rumor has it that it was you who got rid of the kingdom's blizzard, I'll let you take one map for free."

"Wow! I mean, thank you!"

Oaken left her to browse. Most of the maps were local to Arendelle; a few charted distant lands she'd never heard of. The maps of Arendelle itself were each unique, but they all had one common inconvenience: they said nothing of the Valley of Living Rock.

I need to try a different approach, she thought. She pushed all but three Arendelle maps away and lined the three maps up side by side. The first one was beautifully illustrated, detailing the castle, town and forests in bright color. The second was older, merely sketched out in dark ink. But the trails were more detailed than on the first map; forks, caves and dead-ends drawn there were missing from the first map. Finally, the last map looked most practical for travelers and hikers. It actually had the names of places, roads and mountains.

"Mountains…" Anna murmured. She hovered one finger over the trading post drawn on the map. The path she'd taken there had led her northwest. When she and Kristoff had left the trading post in search of Elsa days before, they'd continued northwest. Her finger rested on the words 'North Mountain' as she recalled how frightened Elsa had been of being a danger to Anna.

"Then we were chased out," she said, drawing an invisible line east from the North Mountain to a blank space in a circle of other peaks. "This must be it. I have to go east."

A/N: Thanks for your patience with these beginning chapters! I wanted to pick up from that one scene in the movie, and that kind of required a transitional beginning. Sure, I COULD have just dropped Characters A-D in Situations 1 and 2 but that would have just been impatient of me. I am really excited to share the next chapter since it's where the "good stuff" begins. Look out for it soon!