"Kristoff, just how far out were you planning on taking me? We've been riding for quite some time and we didn't bring anything for camping," said Anna, looking around from the back of her horse.

"Don't worry Anna, it's not far now,' said Kristoff, his voice cracking as he rode on ahead of her.

He wasn't riding Sven, but rather one of the horses from the stable. Although Sven had gone with him when he went out to hunt the Wendigo and Anna knew that she'd seen Sven pouncing around in the woods just beyond the city of Arendelle, Kristoff just gave her a blank stare whenever she asked him about him before they'd left.

"Kristoff, are you alright? You've been awfully quiet," asked Anna to fill the silence.

She'd also noticed an abundant lack of animal life. It was one thing that she didn't see anything; that was normal. There'd been people here too long and the animals had long since learned to avoid them. Rather, what she noticed was the lack of sound. She hadn't been out in the woods with Kristoff often, but the few times she explored with him there was always an explosion of sounds. The lack of it disturbed her.

Her own horse, meanwhile, had been acting skittish, prancing around and jerking from side to side, as if to avoid some unseen danger ahead of it.

"I'm fine," he croaked before returning to the silence that had covered him most of the trip. The brightness that filled him at the castle was now gone and he would jerk his head around every so often like a hawk looking for a mouse.

Elsa's doubts filled her mind. He's changed, Anna. Something happened when they fought the Wendigo, and the Kristoff that left didn't come back Elsa had said to her.

Anna had dismissed it as simple fear on her part when she first said it. Elsa had been so worried about everything since the Wendigo had come, this must have been a last fear. Now that she was alone with him in the woods, though, it didn't sound so outlandish.

Kristoff jerked his horse to a halt and dismounted. "We're here. Follow me," he said, tying his reigns around a small tree branch. He grabbed a small bundle that had been lashed to the back of his saddle and went into the woods

Anna dismounted from her own horse, tied it off and followed.

He moved quickly through the woods and as they moved the sound of a mighty rushing water filled the air.

"Kristoff, where are you?" asked Anna, looking around the woods in an effort to spot him.

"Here!" he cried, and she looked up to see that he had set up a little picnic. He'd pulled out a bottle of wine, a pair of wine glasses, a loaf of bread, a few choice pieces of meat and some vegitables. She smiled and ran to join him and then gasped at what she saw.

It was a waterfall, cascading out from a cave on the mountainside and rushing out into a fiord below. Around it were a surge of willow trees, all draping their branches over the chasm that had been carved out by the fiord below.

"Kristoff, it's beautiful!" said Anna as she looked on.

"I'm glad that you like it, I'd hoped you would," said Kristoff. He pulled out a cutting board and began to focus on cutting slabs of bread off using one of the silver knives from the kitchen.

Anna watched the falls for a moment longer and then turned back. "Kristoff, where'd you find this place?" she asked him, leaning into him for a kiss.

Kristoff jumped, cutting himself with the knife. "Damnit!" he said, staring at his finger for a moment before putting it into his mouth.

"Oh I am so sorry, let me clean that," said Anna, pulling his finger from his mouth and dabbing it off with a handkerchief.

"I'm fine," said Kristoff, jerking it away from her as fast as he could, but not before she could dab it a few times.

"Don't be such a … baby," said Anna as she took a look at the handkerchief. It was stained a dark, ichorous black color instead of the red that she'd expected.

"Kristoff, what's this?" asked Anna, holding the napkin up to him.

Kristoff sighed. "I'd hoped to keep that from you a while longer, until I was ready. It would seem that my hand has been forced," said Kristoff as he got to his feet.

Anna looked on in horror as his limbs began to lengthen, cracking and stretching his skin out as they did so. The cracks began to fill with that same black ichor before crusting over with ice. In a matter of moments, Kristoff had doubled in height and his skin had taken on a frostbitten white color.

"Kristoff?" asked Anna, all color draining from her face as she watched his face grow sharp and angular, filling up with a vicious hunger she'd never seen on him before.

"I would say that I'm sorry about this, but I'm not. No, I'm going to enjoy it a lot," said Kristoff as he raised a hand that was now tipped with claws.

Anna tried to run but she couldn't get her body to work. It was too much, and her body had frozen in place.

"Get away from her!" cried a voice from the woods and then there was a spear howling past Kristoff's face.

Kristoff howled and Anna watched as it too shifted and all the remaining visages of Kristoff's caring face melted away as another one took its place. It was only visible for a few moments before the black ichor filled in the scars, but that was enough to shake her from her fear. She got to her feet and raced towards the second voice, comforted by its familiar rage.

"I was afraid you were dead!" cried Anna as she rushed into his arms.

"Not yet," he said as he plopped her up on Sven before mounting up behind her. "Home, Sven!" he cried and the reindeer took off.

"Was that …" began Anna not able to comprehend what she'd seen behind her.

"Yes. It turned him. I don't know how, but it turned him and then he helped kill it," he said, glancing back behind him to be sure that it wasn't following them.

The new Wendigo slammed into Anna and carried her off of Sven. "Your face is mine, Anna!" it cried, clawing into her as it opened its maw wide.

Anna screamed and waited for the end to come. Her savior was too far away to stop it this time and she knew he had no other weapons, which was why the sudden barrage of stones took them both by surprise.

The Wendigo howled and leapt away. "This isn't the end!" it cried before licking its fingers as it leapt away, racing back to the path they'd taken.

Anna only stayed down for a moment before crawling to her feet. "We have to get back, we have to warn them!" she cried, fighting against the mass of trolls that now swarmed all over her.

"We have to make sure you're ok first," said one as he pulled her back down.

"Elsa can defend herself against it, but she'd never forgive me if I let you die," said Kristoff as he knelt down next to her.

"But they need to know! They need to know that Hans isn't dead!" cried Anna as the trolls did something to cause her to stop fighting them and she drifted off into sleep.