Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; the elements taken from Frozen are obvious, and while this version of Zorro is taken mainly from Mask and Legend, I've incorporated elements of his history from other adaptations. Even the original idea for this fic was inspired by the artwork of shishyoukai on DeviantArt, although I have created my own narrative for it; the artwork only inspired the idea of a certain sister becoming Zorro.

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: This chapter is relatively short, but I hope it will provide a better insight on what's going on back in Arendelle outside of the royal family.

The Frozen Fox

Sitting in the forest that had been his sanctuary, Kristoff mused on the irony that he was fighting for something he was too young to remember.

He had some vague memories of the days when he would just hang around with the official ice harvesters and try to chip in where he could, even though his small tools could never hope to match what they produced, but they got fainter as time went on. His clearest early memory was of the day he'd found himself in the trolls' forest while playing with Sven one day, and been swiftly 'adopted' into the family once they'd all confirmed nobody was particularly expecting Kristoff back in the village. Kristoff could never even remember what had happened to his own parents, but he had settled into his life with the trolls, accepting them as his family and doing what he could to help them out in turn once he came to appreciate the scale of what was being done to them.

Kristoff had no magic himself, but he had seen the trolls use it to help each other and was satisfied that they would never have used such magic to hurt others. He wasn't going to deny that magic could be dangerous, but the way King Runeard acted it was as though everyone with magic would start trying to kill normal people as soon as they met. He'd met some people with magic whose skills amounted to nothing more than being a really good baker or just being able to make flowers bloom in cold weather, and almost none of them were even the kind of person who would use such abilities offensively even if they could.

Kristoff was satisfied that opposing Renard was the right thing to do, but the tricky part of his current life was finding people who would actually agree with the idea of fighting him. The young man wasn't blind to the fact that Runeard was a good king when it came to other matters, such as making trade deals or protecting the people when someone or something tried to attack them for real. It was just that those moments didn't make up for all the times Runeard would kill and torture people for no better reason than that they had magic, talking about the 'danger' it posed when most of the time none of them had done anything threatening with it until the king started trying to capture or kill them just because of what they were…

"It's rough, isn't it?" Sven 'said' as he sat alongside Kristoff and nudged him with his nose.

"Yeah," Kristoff agreed. He didn't know how he had developed this 'habit' of essentially speaking for Sven, but the reindeer had always been unusually intelligent for his species, so he chose to assume that Sven didn't outright object to what he 'said' on his behalf and just say what felt right. "I mean, all this work, and have we ever changed anything?"

"We're all safe," Sven 'responded', nudging Kristoff's shoulder to turn him around to see where the trolls were currently wandering around their valley, occasionally pausing to talk with one of their current 'guests'.

"But is that enough?" Kristoff mused, kicking his feet together in frustration as he stood up and walked off into the woods, ignoring the troll valley behind him and waving at Sven to stay behind.

He just needed to be alone for a few moments to… to…

"Damnit," he muttered to himself as he slammed his hand against the nearest tree, forced to acknowledge that nobody in the resistance had a clear plan at this point. They could rescue a few key people from Runeard's raids at a time, but they all knew that their main advantage in this mess was that the king didn't dare do anything too public because he didn't want to make the kingdom think they were under any kind of large-scale threat. So long as the ruler of Arendelle just went after a few key magic-users and subsequently built them up as criminals later, nobody would actually object to Runeard's actions, and then he just needed to go after someone legitimately dangerous now and again to assure people that his actions were for the best.

There were always rumours going around about just how Runeard kept coming out on top when going after his more high-profile targets, but there was no way anyone in Kristoff's contacts would find out for sure. Some of the resistance members had managed to form cautious friendships with some of the palace staff, but the king didn't exactly share his secrets with the servants, and there was no way anyone in the resistance could take the risk of trying to get into a position where he might be willing to at least talk about something useful within earshot.

The goal itself wasn't bad, but the things people would have to do in order to win that kind of trust from Runeard… Kristoff already knew he'd never be able to go that far, and he couldn't think of anyone else in the group who would be either.

If the resistance was were ever going to make a real impression on Runeard's plans, Kristoff knew that they needed a true champion, and as much as he respected them all he wasn't sure if anyone had the strength to be such a public figure in that regard.