Chapter 2 - "I Can't Tell You"

Anna woke up excitedly the day of the harvest festival, for once, it seemed. She hurriedly got dressed in a white dress with a black lace-up corset over it, the short skirt falling to her calves. She was about to braid her hair but decided to wear it down today, with a flower crown of different colored rose buds - red, orange, yellow, pink, white, and even some dyed blue. She sometimes grew blue roses from white ones by watering them with blue food dye. She looked in her mirror as she placed the flower crown on her head, glancing at her own pink lips in a titled smile, blue-green eyes and long unbound hay-colored hair. Then she laced up her walking boots as the festival was not in the square but out in the countryside.

Anna felt like a maiden in fairy tales as she walked alone to the festival. Queen Elsa of course would be riding in a horse-drawn carriage. Anna was supposed to be in the carriage too but had insisted on sleeping in late and getting there on her own means. It was only after the queen's carriage had already departed without the princess that Elsa realized she had Anna's horse pulling her. But Anna felt like walking as it wasn't far, and maybe she would make friends.

Once outside the town, the road stretched through the fields of crops, orchards, and yards of free-roam animals. As she walked she slowly gained on a lone figure ahead. Was someone attending the festival alone like she was? At least he or she was heading the same direction as her.

It was a he. He was shuffling his feet and kicking up the dirt in the road. He looked about the same age as her.

She broke into a run to catch up with the loner. "Hallo!" she called out.

The boy turned toward her with a startled expression but said nothing. His brown hair stuck out in tufts and his eyes were a piercing blue. He was wearing a black jacket over a white shirt with blue pants, and ankle-height walking boots like hers. His hands were shoved in his pockets.

He said nothing so the girl kept going. "Are you on your way to the festival?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered quickly.

"I'm going the same way. Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"Yes."

"You mean, you don't want me to?" she asked confusedly.

"No, I said yes," he replied. He broke into a brisk walk and the girl followed behind him, hurrying to keep up.

The boy seemed a bit distant, maybe quiet or shy, so the girl thought she could break the ice, so to say. "Do you live around here?" He was probably from some farm house along the road, she thought.

"No, actually, I'm not from around here. I'm just visiting," he said. "Where are you from?"

"Arendelle," she answered hesitantly as she didn't wish to tell him yet she lived in the castle. "I've lived there my whole life," she said with hands behind her back as she skipped ahead.

"What's your name?" the boy asked with a grin.

"Anna. What's yours?"

He came to a stop in the road. "I can't tell you," he said lowly and quietly.

"Why not?" Anna asked with a frown.

"Because . . . we don't know each other well enough yet."

"Well we could get to know each other, but most people start with their names. Hey, what-"

Without an explanation and in the middle of her sentence, the boy broke into a run down the dusty road toward a pumpkin patch. He sat down on one of the giant rounded fruits, leaning forward and with his legs spread out. "I hear a wagon coming. Let's wait for a ride."

"Alright." Anna sat down primly on top of a pumpkin, splaying out her skirt over her legs. "Though I've walked all this way-"

"That's enough of that!" the boy retorted. A horse-drawn cart full of apples came hauling down the road, but the driver continued on without stopping. "Hey!" the boy cried out. He picked up an already-rotten pumpkin with bluish mold spots between his two hands, lifted it into the air, and threw it toward the now-distant cart. The rotten pumpkin smashed to pieces on the road as he stood there in a fury.

Anna stared at him from atop her pumpkin throne. "Hey, yourself. You're mischievous, aren't you?"

The mysterious boy picked up a half-red, half-green apple that had fallen off the cart. He wiped the dust off with his sleeve and then offered it to the girl. Anna smiled and reached out to take it, but he pulled it back just as quickly and held it up out of her reach. Anna leaped for it but he held her back with the other hand.

"Mischievous, huh?" he said, grinning. "I'll give you the apple if you win a game."

"What game?"

"I'll give it to you, if you guess my name." He thought a moment. "Just my first name. You get three guesses."

Anna crossed her arms and tilted her hips. She was clever at games, she thought. "If you give me three clues. That would be fair."

"Deal!" He polished the apple. Then, for the first clue, he held up two fingers over his hair like rabbit ears.

"A rabbit? Bunny?" He kept shaking his head no. "A jackrabbit?" He stopped and nodded excitedly. "Jack?"

"Yeah! There you got it in one guess." He was about to hand her over the apple, but quickly pulled it back again and took a bite out of the green side.

"Hey, you!" she said, half laughing and half pouting.

"Hey, yourself." He tossed the apple at her and she caught it in her hands. "It still took you a clue."

Another wagon was passing by, this one full of hay, but it came to a halt in the road. "Thanks!" Jack called to either the driver or the horse, whoever had stopped for them. He helped Anna up from the pumpkin and then onto the cart, where she sat comfortably on a pile of hay. He hopped on next to her. Anna inconspicuously took the apple with Jack's bite out of the green side, and took a clandestine bite out of the red side of the apple.

When Jack saw her he grabbed the apple and threw it as far as he could into an empty field.

"So . . . Jack . . . are you excited for today?" she asked him as the cart pulled into motion and bumbled down the road.

"It's probably the same as every year," he laughed.

As the cart rumbled past, a tall, dark figure stepped out from behind an apple tree. "Well, Jack, it seems you've got your first name back." Pitch Black said through a grimace. "But not your last." He laughed menacingly, and disappeared again.