I'm back! Thanks for all the views, reviews, favorites and follows this story has gotten so far! You all are amazing! The reason this update took so long is I somehow went about 2 weeks without writing anything :(
Oh, so you know the stuff I said about it being the Duke and his guards' last appearance in the author's comments at the end of last chapter? Well, that was wrong, Completely wrong. I didn't change story plans or anything, so it was wrong when I wrote it. Which is sort of awkward. Anyways, you'll see.
So I now own a Frozen DVD, Tinker Bell: An Evolution, and a Great Fairy Rescue Lizzy doll that I got a couple weeks ago. Which means I own both Frozen and Disney Fairies, right? :) I wish that was the case, anyways.
Well, time for chapter 27.
For an instant, Elsa just stared in shock and horror at Anna's lifeless body. Then she crumpled to the ground and wrapped her little sister in her arms. At first, she just cried her sister's name as she unknowingly covered the floor and the bottom half of the walls in ice, but she soon started trying to comfort her, as if Anna could hear what she was saying.
The fairies crowded around the princesses, trying to comfort Elsa and help Anna at the same time. Zarina tried a bit of special Pixie Dust. Elsa had no idea what it was, but she didn't bother asking. It didn't appear to do anything, and Zarina gave up and put it away.
"Do you think she's okay?" Silvermist asked. Vidia shot back "Yeah, sure. She looks fine! Except for the fact that she's unconscious! Does that seem 'okay' to you?!" Vidia's comment certainly didn't help Elsa's mood any, and she started hyperventilating. "Hey. She's going to be all right." Peri fluttered in front of Elsa before stroking the girl's cheek. Elsa wasn't reassured. "She doesn't feel all right. She's so cold."
"If she was knocked out by magic, she can probably be woken up with magic, too." Tink reasoned. Rosetta replied "Exactly, sugar! Now all we need is someone who knows healing magic." There was a pause, and then Fawn suggested doubtfully "What about the healing-talents?" Nobody really gave much thought to that idea; this seemed a little out of the healing-talents' realm, like a broken wing. The healing fairies were amazing, but there were some things they just couldn't fix.
"She's cold as ice and part of her hair turned white! It's all my fault, and I can't do healing magic!" Elsa wailed, feeling as if she was letting Anna down. "You can't, but trolls can." Came a reply. Elsa looked over and saw Vilhelm emerge from the room he'd dragged the unconscious forms of the Duke and Thomas into. Thomas' coat was draped over his arm, and he threw it to her.
With the fairies' help, Elsa wrapped Thomas' coat around Anna to try and warm her up a little. When she was done, Elsa looked up worriedly at Vilhelm, completely unsure of whether to trust him or not. Some of the fairies were hovering in between Vilhelm and the princesses, in case he should try anything.
Vilhelm had decided to take orders from himself right now. Originally they were just going to return the princesses to the castle, get a reward for their efforts, and continue as usual. But then the Duke had made that whole crazy change to the plan and had tried to murder the princesses. Vilhelm hated himself for almost letting it happen (even though he'd tried to talk the Duke out of it, he felt as if he hadn't done anything). He planned on doing everything he could to the princesses home safe and sound, both because it's what he'd intended to do all along and because it would help ease his conscious about not doing enough before. The Duke wouldn't know; he was knocked out. Plus, he might get some much needed money.
The fairies glanced at each other after scrutinizing Vilhelm. Could they trust him? He really hadn't done anything antagonistic, now that they thought about it. They reached a conclusion, and Tink told Elsa "We can trust him. He's not bad." The fairies hoped they were right about this.
"You know about the trolls?" Elsa asked, still nervous around him but quite curious at the same time. Vilhelm nodded and said "There are trolls in every kingdom. I know where they are in Arendelle." It was pretty rare for royalty to visit trolls, and even rarer for commoners to do so. Few knew where to find them, despite there being books about where trolls could be found in every kingdom. Vilhelm had discovered such a book in the Duke's library, and he'd visited the Weselton trolls. He'd gone begging them to save his wife and daughter when it seemed his wife would die in childbirth, and again when his daughter caught a horrible disease, just a year ago.
"I'll take you there, as soon as I find a horse." He said as they headed to the deck of the ship. Tink whispered in Elsa's ear, and Elsa repeated it. "You saw what Anna and I did in the woods, right?" She actually smiled a tiny bit when she asked it. Before Vilhelm could answer, the fairies sprinkled Pixie Dust on him, Elsa and the unconscious Anna.
Vilhelm was justifiably shocked, amazed and scared when he started floating. "H-How...?" He stammered. "Is this your magic, too?" Elsa just shook her head and said "Nope. It's my friends. Now where do we go?" Then, pulling Vilhelm and Anna behind them, Elsa and the fairies set off, hoping Vilhelm actually knew where to go.
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A slight mist was forming around the circular valley they landed in. The whole place was very mossy, and there were a ton of equally moss-covered boulders lying around. The valley was very suited for a mystical part of the forest. It actually reminded Elsa of Pixie Hollow.
So, they were in the Valley of the Living Rock. Elsa looked around doubtfully. Where were the trolls? Maybe this was where they lived, and they were out doing something? She hoped they'd come back soon- Anna had to be helped as quickly as possible. What would happen if she wasn't helped in time? Elsa didn't like that thought at all.
Suddenly, the rocks began to tumble and roll down towards her. She shot up a bit, floating just above the tops of the rocks so she wouldn't be crushed. To her amazement, the rocks uncurled and revealed themselves to be the trolls- which explained the valley's name. The trolls resembled, well, rocks- rocks wearing clothes made of moss, grass, twigs and other items from nature. Like fairies, they appeared to be so connected with nature that they were part of it.
"It's the princess!" One of the trolls exclaimed. Elsa had no idea how they knew who she was, (perhaps their parents had told the trolls about her and Anna) but at least she didn't have to introduce herself. "It's Anna. She's hurt. Can you help her... please?' Elsa begged, trying unsucessfully to avoid tearing up. Through her now blurry vision, she saw a troll with a dark blonde mane dressed with a cape walk towards her. She had the distinct impression he was the leader. She was right- he was Grand Pabbie.
"Born with the powers, or cursed?" Pabbie asked as he felt along Anna's head. "Born." Elsa replied. It seemed she wouldn't continue, so Pabbie questioned her again. "Have they been getting stronger?"
"Yeah. A lot stronger." Elsa wondered why that mattered. "Let me see," Pabbie then gently touched Anna's head, saying "You were lucky it wasn't her heart. The heart is not so easily changed. But the head can be persuaded."
Elsa was getting hopeful that everything would be okay. "I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe... But don't worry. I'll leave the fun." Pabbie said. He waved his hand and a cloud appeared, showing Elsa and Anna, wearing their coats and nightgowns, building Olaf in the courtyard. The image of what had started this whole adventure. Only when Pabbie waved his hand, all of the Arendelle in the image became snowy too, instead of just the courtyard. Elsa making the ice castle in the woods became Peri making it. In fact, every memory Anna had of Elsa using magic from after they met the fairies was switched to Peri doing the magic, while every memory before was switched to natural snow and ice scenes.
"She will be okay." The cloud disappeared back into Anna's head, and Anna smiled, still unconscious. "But she won't remember I have powers?" Elsa asked sadly. Beckoning her forward, Pabbie warned her. "Listen to me, Elsa. Your powers will only grow. There is beauty in it..." An image of an older Elsa making a wonderful snowflake appeared. "But also great danger." The snowflake turned red, and Pabbie continued "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy." The snowflake turned into an angry mob that jumped on the image of Elsa. The real Elsa gasped in horror and turned away, covering her eyes. Was that really her future?
Tink and Peri weren't sure it was a good idea, but Pabbie seemed to know what he was doing; they could wait and see if this was the solution. They went over to comfort Elsa, who was obviously scared. Meanwhile, had noticed a boy lurking off on the sidelings. The boy looked a lot like Terence, and he had a baby reindeer with him. He wondered if this boy had been his laugher.
Struck by an idea, Zarina tried some of her special dust again. Something about the magic the trolls had used mixed with the magic of the Pixie Dust, and Anna opened her eyes.
Elsa smiled. "Let's go home."
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There it was. Arendelle castle, with all its magnificent spires, sitting in the lake that served as a moat. Home. Their real home. Anna and Elsa flew down towards the ground unsteadily (they were both exhausted from the ordeals before, and it was almost midnight). They'd agreed to walk once they reached the village. After walking through the village, they crossed the bridge leading to the castle. There were guards stationed there now (clearly the somewhat lax policy had been changed until the princesses were found).
Funnily enough, the guards didn't recognize them at first. Once the princesses remembered to pull their hoods off, the guards gasped, bowed quickly, and quickly escorted them through the courtyard and into the castle. Both girls heard one of the fairies whisper in her ear that they'd be waiting, but Tink and Peri stayed with them.
Once inside, one of the guards raced upstairs. A minute later, the queen of Arendelle almost flew down the stairs. She had major bedhead, and was wearing a nightgown wrinkled from much tossing and turning. The guards averted their eyes, feeling it wasn't right for them to see their queen in such a state.
The queen knelt down and wrapped her daughters in her arms. "Oh, my babies!" She said between kisses. "At least you didn't need to spend a whole night lost in the woods!" Tink and Peri exchanged glances with the girls. Had the second star not counted that day as time passing? Or had it "paused" Arendelle with the same power it had to pause aging and put the "never" in Neverland?
The queen looked up at Vilhelm, who was hovering in the background, and their eyes met. "Thank you for bringing them back safe and sound." She thanked him.
"Wait a minute. What on earth are those?" the Queen asked, fingering Elsa's animal suit. "Oh, um..." Elsa faltered, and Tink whispered into her ear "say the trolls gave them to you." It's not like she"d believe the truth anyways.
"The trolls. We got them from the trolls." The queen then asked why they were visiting the trolls, and Elsa stalled. Some part of her brain was telling her not to say that it was her magic that had hurt Anna. Finally she said "Anna had an accident in the snow, but they fixed it." Luckily for Elsa, at least, Anna gave such a tremendous yawn that the Queen was distracted from pressing the issue further.
"Off to bed, both of you. You must be exhausted. We'll discuss this further in the morning." The princesses left, and the Queen turned to Vilhelm. "What happened?" She asked him.
Vilhelm hesitated. The queen was known to be formidable, and was very protective of her family. He certainly didn't want to be the one to tell her the Duke had planned on murdering her daughters- she'd be rightfully enraged, which was apparently very unpleasant to behold. But it would be worse if she wasn't told and found out be some other means.
He asked her to hold all comments and questions until the end, and hoped she wouldn't tear his head off. He told her everything, except for all the Neverland and fairy stuff he was clueless about, of course. When he was done, the queen was furious, though thankfully not at him. "Tell me," She said "Do you have any children?"
"Yes, a daughter." He answered. The queen nodded. She believed him. She could see in his eyes that he would never do something to someone else's daughters that he wouldn't want done to his own daughter. It seemed they were on the same page. However, the Duke had something else coming for him.
She offered to Vilhelm handsomely for bringing her daughters back, but he had something else in mind. He accepted a considerably lower payment (though it was still a great deal more than he was used to, not that that was saying too much) and requested he be allowed to move into Arendelle with his family. He liked it a lot more the Weselton, and he wouldn't have to worry about the Duke.
The queen told some of the guards to go out and find the king, who was still searching for Elsa and Anna. She picked a handful of her best guards to sail the Duke and Thomas back to Weselton as prisoners for trying to kill her daughters. Once there, they were to find Vilhelm's wife and daughter (Vilhelm quickly scrawled a note with their names so the guards could find them, along with a note to his wife telling her what was happening) and take them to Arendelle, where they'd hopefully start a better life.
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Elsa and Anna, accomponied by Tink and Peri, reached the top of the stairs and walked towards their bedroom door. Elsa turned the handle, gently pushed the door open, and Anna entered her room for the first time in weeks, maybe months- she wasn't sure. One of the first things they noticed was the glows of the other fairies outside the window. They perched on the windowsill, and Elsa crawled up on the window seat and opened the window.
The fairies flew from the windowsill to the window seat, and the dozen or so glows gave the room a soft, peaceful light. "Well, here we are." Silvermist said unnecessarily. The girls' eyes were drooping and the fairies smiled fondly. Elsa and Anna were so cute when they were tired.
As the princesses climbed into their beds, some of the fairies poked around their toys. Fawn liked the stuffed animals most, Vidia almost broke the pinwheel by having it spin so fast, and Tink thought about how interesting it would be to pull their windup toy apart and see how it worked. Prilla had seen all of these types of toys before, but they were still fun. She joined a couple of the others in exploring the dollhouse.
Once the girls had climbed in their beds, the fairies tucked them in. Tink and Peri flew over to the window seat and grabbed the Elsa and Anna dolls. They gave each girl the doll version of her sister. Both girls were asleep almost immediately, and didn't remember Tink and Peri hugging them before the fairies flew out the window and back to Neverland.
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Both girls were a bit confused when they woke up in their room the next morning. It didn't take Elsa long to remember that Anna didn't know about her powers anymore. She felt a great loss at this, but if it would keep Anna safe, it was worth it. Anna had wanted to build another Olaf, which Elsa would've been fine with. It was still snowing outside, so she accidentally slipped and used her powers, it would have passed as natural. But they hadn't taken five steps outside before their mother stopped them and told them to come back in.
Elsa wondered what she could do with Anna without worrying about her magic slipping out. She'd noticed over the years that she'd unintentionally use her powers whenever she felt a strong emotion- excitement, fear, anger, sadness- though it mostly occurred when she was scared or mad.
Anna had grabbed their two-seat bike and was suggesting riding it around. No, we can't do that! Elsa thought We always go down the stairs, and that always scares me so much I unleash my magic. "Let's play dolls. We could have a tea party or something," Oops- bad suggestion. Anna didn't like tea parties since she had to sit still for them. "Or we could have them fight each other." Anna loved that, normally.
"No! I wanna ride the bike!" Anna had her heart set on a bike ride down the stairs, while Elsa was equally set on doing something gentle that wouldn't unleash her magic. "I know, let's draw pictures!" She suggested, trying to come up with safe activity she could think of. "No! Ride with me!" Anna whined, grabbing Elsa's wrist and pulling her towards the bike.
"Let me go!" Elsa hollered, and a small cloud of snow exploded from Elsa's hand. "Where did that come from?" Anna asked, letting go of Elsa's wrist. "It was up my sleeve." Elsa blurted out the first thing she thought of and fled, hoping Anna wouldn't realize the snow would've melted if it really had been in her sleeve.
Elsa ran into a guest bedroom and shut the door, before hiding under the bed. It probably wouldn't be long before Anna found her. She looked at her hands and saw they were frosted in a layer of ice. She tried holding them against her body to melt it, but new ice kept forming since she hadn't totally calmed down yet.
She was really worried. She'd goofed up already and they hadn't even been playing for twenty minutes. Anna still hadn't found her about half an hour later, and Elsa remained under the bed. The more she avoided Anna, the less she'd have to worry about accidentally hurting her sister with her powers again.
Well, there's chapter 27. I hope it was worth the wait.
Ok, so I don't even know why I wrote Vilhelm would sail the Duke and Thomas back, because I'd always intended he'd cut ties with the Duke. Actually, I'm starting to think my brain was off when I wrote that one paragraph, because it was totally wrong. He's kinda a good guy now. I hope this ending seems sort of realistic. If I worked for someone who told me to kill kids, I want to get as far away from them as possible. I don't know what will happen to Vilhelm in Arendelle, aside from that he won't have to worry about the Duke and he won't be in contact with the castle.
I couldn't resist making Kristoff be Terence's laugh. It seems like a great fit, but I didn't really plan on expanding it.
I really wanted to end this chapter with the fairies putting Elsa and Anna to bed, but the next scene couldn't be with the next chapter, so I had to put it in this one.
I'm going to finish this story in the next two weeks, since I only have two chapters left- well, one chapter and an epilogue. I wrote this chapter in about a week, and there was just that stupid two week writing break.
Next chapter's going to be so much fun to write! See you then, in a week or so (I'm going to try to make myself write a page every day, if not more).