Andy rode along two feet of snow, which was becoming deeper and deeper as the storm his brother had created raged on. Snowflakes landed on his hair, making the single streak of white in it look not quite so alone.
"Elliott!" he cried out to the forest, shivering and regretting his decision of coming in only his coronation clothes, "It's me, Andy! Your brother who didn't mean to make you freeze the summer!"
"I'm sorry! It's all my f-f-f-fault!" he kept yelling a long time later, with still no sign of the king. Had his horse not been a good Norwegian breed it probably would not have soldiered on for as long as it had.
He rubbed his horse's neck affectionately and told it, "Of course, none of this would've happened if he'd just told me his secret, ha... what a little shi- OH!"
His horse reared back, neighing in alarm. Andy tried to grab on but the cold had numbed him so much he went flying, landing on a bank of snow.
"Wait! No! You traitor, wait!" he watched helplessly as his horse ran away, scared for some reason. "Coward!"
He scowled, looking around, but saw nothing. Just the rustle of some leaves on a bush but how could something that small scare his horse so much? For a split second he thought he heard a laugh, but it was probably just the wind.
"Or maybe just a bunny," Andy patted snow off his arms and legs, "Brilliant."
•••
The prince struggled, out of breath, to the top of a hill, hugging his sides and cursing every particle of snow that his brother summoned on this land. He'd been ranting for the last hour to no one really; he was used to talking to himself and the furniture of the castle after Elliot-well...
"It-had-to-be-snow," he huffed, reaching the top of the hill, "He could have had the power of flight, power to become invisible, but nope! Elliott just had to go and turn Arendelle into a massive ice cube. How fun. Or maybe he could've had, like, power over the Earth, like the trolls, or power over- FIRE!" With the look of pure joy he got on his face, one would have thought the prince had just seen a mountain of gold, but no; it was just the smoke from a little cabin at the bottom of the other side from the hill, across a stream.
He raised his head and arms to the sky, catching sight of the beautiful Northern Lights, "Thank you! Nice, warm fire at last!"
He started to sprint down the hill, but his calculations on the slipperiness of the rock below were wrong because he ended up tripping and rolling down the hill, landing on the frozen stream below.
"Jeez! Ah...why... me..." his trousers stuck to his legs, icy water making his skin crawl. He hurried to the small cabin, but by the time he made it to the steps, the cold air had already frozen his trousers stiff making it hard to walk. He looked up at the sign, covered in snow. He hit the sign with his palm and the snow fell off so he could read; "OLGA'S TRAVELER TRADE."
"So basically, Olga's T.T," he read, and then almost giggled at how that sounded out loud, but kept his composure. He was a prince, wasn't he?
He waddled like a penguin towards the door and went in, his frozen legs making the simple task ten times harder since he couldn't really bend his knees. A little bell dinged above him.
It was a nice little shop, but Andy was disappointed to see that most of the stuff on the shelves was more summer-oriented. Yes, it was the season, but that wasn't what he was looking for at that moment. He longed for a bear pelt after trudging through snow for hours.
"Hoo hoo!"
Andy would have jumped had his legs not been frozen. A woman with rosy cheeks sat behind the counter, she had broad shoulders and a kind face; her hair in a tight knot at the top of her head.
"Hi," Andy said.
"Summer sale! Everything 50% off due to unexpected veather conditions," she spoke in a thick accent.
"Oh, nice, but actually... I'm going to need some winter gear, please? Do you have any winter boots, and a nice warm cloak?"
She looked disappointed but gestured at the other side of the store, "That vood be in our vinter department, ja?"
Andy did his penguin-walk to the other side and grabbed a magenta cloak. He made a face, "Do you have any other colors?"
"Nay, sorry for inconvenience," she said, "it's all that's left from the vinter stock."
"Not really my color, but it'll do," he muttered, grabbing dark blue pants and some boots. "By the way, um, Olga? Have you seen anyone else out in the storm? I don't know, someone like The King perhaps?"
"The only crazy enough to be out in the storm is you, dear," she said as Andy placed his selected items on the counter. Suddenly the door swung open and the mass of a person covered in ice stepped in.
"A YETI!" Andy yelled, trying to jump back but only managing to bump his back against the counter. He vaguely knew those ice creatures by name, they lived too far away, so why was one-
"I'm not a yeti," she said in a slightly scratchy voice. Almost husky.
She.
"Oh, you're a girl!" Andy said, relief all over his face. He peered at her closely.
Under the dark gray bobble-hat and the snow that caked most of her body, he could see blonde locks cut choppy and uneven with thin strands braided on either side of her hair. It actually looked kinda good. There were snowflakes in her eyelashes, and he could see the hazelnut eyes glaring at him.
"What?" she snapped.
"Nothing, nothing. I'm glad you're not a yeti," Andy commented, admiring her outfit that looked so much more comfortable and apt for the weather than his coronation clothes. Most of it was dark, lined with nice light brown furs here and there, mittens and a nice set of boots. It had different colored patches like on the elbows and knees, so the outfit had probably seen a few storms already.
She was shorter than him, but he could just tell, that girl could have lifted him off his feet and thrown him across the room, maybe. She looked well-built, she was maybe a mountain woman? Why else would she be out in the storm...
She rolled her eyes, not caring anymore about his blatant staring anymore, and started grabbing supplies from around the shop. A pickaxe, rope, a bag of apples...
"A real howler in July, ja?" Olga said brightly, "Where could it be coming from?"
"The North Mountain," the girl replied curtly, still gathering things. Her voice was muffled by the scarf that covered from her nose and down.
"The North... ah," Andy felt a spark of excitement. The source, then. Elliott.
He didn't mind when the girl cut the line and dumped her things in the counter. In fact, he remembered Helena's words: It's still dark, and you don't know what could be out there. His horse was gone. He didn't want to be next. He needed help from someone that knew the area well enough.
His train of thought crashed when he heard Olga and the girl arguing.
"Olga, please! It's always been 10, I... I can't afford 40!" the girl's muffled words were a mix between desperate and annoyance.
"Sorry, dear, that's no good. Those are supplies from the vinter stock, where supply and demand carry problem, ja?"
"Ha! You wanna talk about supply and demand problems?! I sell ice for a living!" the girl pointed out the window, where a lone sled filled with blocks of ice waited.
"You're an ice harvester?" Andy said, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, you're ruined!" the girl gave him a withering look and Andy coughed, "Ahem. Err. That's... sorry."
"Forty." Olga said firmly. "Ten vill only get you the apples, dear."
"Hold on, mountain woman- what's happening in the North Mountain?" Andy said, and then in a low voice, "did it look out of the ordinary, like...magic?"
The girl pulled down her scarf, revealing light freckles across her nose and a thin scar on the side of her jaw. Wait, what? Why was Andy noticing... it didn't matter. She nodded. "Yes, like magic. It was a blizzard like I've never seen before... now, please, just let me deal with this thief here..."
The woman behind the counter stood up to her full height, something like 7 feet, the bun at the top of her head reached the ceiling and Andy got the urge to run away but he was rooted in place.
"Did you just call me a thief?" A shadow was cast over Olga's face, making her look 10 times more scary.
The girl's eyes widened.
•••
Olga came back and sat behind the counter, like she hadn't just picked up that blonde girl like she was the lightest thing in the world and tossed her out the door, to the snow. Andy watched from the window as the girl picked herself up from the snow, and patted it off. A reindeer with really light brown fur nudged her arm, and she placed a hand on its snout, shaking her head. Then he saw them walk away, to what appeared to be the stables of Olga's Traveler Trade.
The large woman squeezed herself back behind the counter and sat low, her face once again pleasant.
"Sorry about all the violence," she said, and from the folds of her skirt or somewhere Andy couldn't see and didn't want to know, she pulled out a book, "I'll gift to you this book, so we have good feelings. Ja?"
She didn't wait for his answer and thrust the book at him. He didn't want to offend her, "Thanks..."
"Arendelle: A History." Andy pursed his lips. His history tutor had loathed that version. "Inaccurate" "Too many unrealistic things". By that he knew it meant... magic. Spirits, naiads, trolls, dwarves that sort of-
Andy slapped his forehead, "Duh! Maybe I can find out something in our lineage about Elliott's- oh my... this is... our ancestors..."
Olga blinked, "Vat?"
"Nothing! Just... thank you. Truly."
"So the outfit and the boots, ja?" Olga asked good-naturedly.
Andy bit his lip and looked from the book in his hands, to the supplies the girl had left on the counter, and to the window. He sighed.
• • •
"...forty!" Krista mocked in Olga's heavy accent, "I know you're all alone and gotta provide for two, but I'M the one with a supply and demand problem, dear. Ja? JA?!"
Suri snorted and folded her long legs, laying down on the sort-of-clean barn floor. Krista finished defrosting her clothes near the fireplace. If Olga found out they were freeloading in her barn... she shuddered. That woman could be scary when she wanted to.
"You can do without the supplies," Krista said in Suri's goofy voice, "Still mad you didn't get me any apples though."
The reindeer nodded like it agreed with her voiceover, antlers almost poking Krista in the eye as she settled down next to her friend.
"Oh, shush. Did you get a chance to see who was inside?" Krista lay her head down against her improvised hay bed.
"The Prince, girl. Anders... Andy," the thought of the Prince staring at her with those wide green eyes made her blush. Had it been in a judging way or in a good way, Krista hadn't been able to tell.
She'd seen the prince rarely over the years, but that streak of white on his hair was unique. Prince Elliott- or rather, King- herself and her troll family were the only ones that knew where that had really come from.
"He asked me about the North Mountain, you know, where the-" Krista stopped short and frowned. Where that weird storm had been coming from. The really unnatural storm. That's right, his older brother had come of age today...
"Why wasn't the prince still at the coronation party?" Krista wondered out loud. Her stomach growled.
"Apples," Krista moaned in Suri's voice. That one word the reindeer understood, and she grunted, nuzzling Krista's arm.
"Thanks for nothing Olga," Krista muttered and patted Suri's head, "Reindeers are better than people. Don't'cha think that's true?"
"People are the worst! People will beat you and curse you and cheat you!" Suri punctuated every one of Krista's words stomping her hoof against the wood floor. Hear ye, hear ye. Krista laughed and added, still in her reindeer voice, "Every one of em's bad, except you!"
"Aw, thanks girl," Krista smiled, ignoring the hole in her stomach. "I'll find us something in the morning, yeah?" she let herself fall back down on the hay, closing her eyes. "G'night."
She'd worry about magical storms and princes in odd places tomorrow...
"HELLO!"
The door to the stables swung open and Krista jumped with a start, her heart leaping to her throat. There stood the Prince, smiling sheepishly. He'd changed from his previous fancy outfit to some winter gear, a magenta cape with a matching cap, blue mittens that were holding a thick leather-bound book.
"I almost went into cardiac arrest," Krista growled, holding a hand to her chest and it felt like a hummingbird was trapped there.
"But you didn't!" the Prince said brightly. Then he turned serious. "I need you to take me to the North Mountain."
"Do I look like a tour guide to you?" Krista said, it came out harsher than she intended and she cringed inside.
Prince Anders-or, well,- Andy, puffed out his cheeks and frowned. He wasn't used to having orders turned down. He tucked the book under his arm and from somewhere beyond the door Krista couldn't see, he pulled a sack and tossed it at her feet. From inside spilled the supplies she'd been intending to buy.
She looked from the things to the Prince's expectant face and back at the supplies. She picked up the new pickaxe and almost smiled. Almost.
"Take me up the North Mountain, please, mountain woman."
"You have a death wish? With all that snow-"
"Look, I know how to stop this winter," Andy said, less patient now, "I'm probably, like, the only one that knows."
And then it hit her. But she was careful to hide her emotions.
King Elliott. Had fear consumed him? Had the King snapped? Had Grand Pabbie's words come true? Was he the one up in the North Mountain creating all the bad weather?
Probably, Krista thought, Grand Pabbie said there was danger in his magic, and if he hadn't learned to control it...
And then, of course, her ice business. She made up her mind.
"I'll help you..." Krista said slowly, biting her lip.
"And, seriously, if you don't take me- wait. What? You will? Great!" Andy grinned, "Thank you, mountain woman!"
"The name's Krista," she grumbled, and lay back down, closing her eyes, "We leave at dawn."
Another sack landed, this time on her lap. She cracked one eye open, just to see a bunch of red apples.
"We leave now!... Please. Right now. It can't wait. It's a matter of life and death. Of no summer or eternal winter, of..." he trailed off.
Krista sat up again, studying the jittery Prince with a raised eyebrow. All he planned to bring along was that book? Was that bunch of papers supposed to stop the ice-crazed King, a.k.a, his brother?
She took a bite from the apple, and without taking her eyes off the Prince's, she handed the rest of it to the eager Suri who chomped it down in one bite.
"Fine. We leave right now."
++++ AHH thank u so much for the reviews, i love reading them! so i posted this a little earlier than i originally planned as thanks!
+++ & about Olga- that's kinda how Oaken sounded to me so i thought i'd just write it that way, no offence or anything intended
++ so a Helena chapter is coming up one or two from this one, and i'm going to need some suggestions for names because... 12 sisters. yeah.
+ the next chapter is lookin really good so far- well i loved writing it, so i hope u all will enjoy reading it also!
thanks for reading!:)