Princess Gerda carefully placed her mirror on the table and walked to the window. She was getting bored of making faces, and hoped the weather would have improved since the last time she had checked, ten minutes ago.
She sighed as her first glance confirmed that it was still not the case. The wind that had been blowing fiercely across the streets of Arendelle for the past weeks was still raging. From here she could see the flags flailing and the few people who had ventured outside desperately clutching at their hats and dresses. And the sea was not faring better – huge waves were rolling across the fjord and crashing around the harbour, shaking the anchored ships like corks in a barrel. The sky was moderately cloudy at the moment, but she knew that was soon going to change – darkness and sunlight succeeded each other in a matter of minutes as the wind chased the thick clouds around.
Gerda sighed again. It was not fair. They were only in the middle of autumn, and there should have been plenty more days left to go playing outside. Now she had been stuck indoors for what felt like ages because of the weather. And this was after a summer that had not been particularly sunny. Come to think of it, she had not very warm memories of spring either.
Idly following with her eyes a bunch of dead leaves carried by the wind, the young princess tried to remember the weather from the previous years. This was the twelfth autumn she was experiencing – or rather, the thirteenth, she thought with a little pang of pride at having reached the responsible and mature age of twelve and at having understood that this meant she was in her thirteenth year. She had hazy memories of her early years, of course, but she could remember a lot of the seasons that had followed. There had been sunny springs, warm summers, beautiful autumns and snowy winters. And each had brought their share of fun activities to enjoy with her family. There would be picnics and boating in summer, hiking and riding in spring and autumn, and skating or skiing in winter. She treasured the enchanting memories of the sled rides with her father, of snowmen building with her mother, and of the various games she would play with Olaf and later her little brother Kai. She still had in her room a collection of stones, shells, and pressed flowers that she and her brother had collected over the years, including the big coloured gem that was a gift from her father's family.
Then there were the other memories - the awesome, unbelievable memories that were not tied to a particular season but a person. Memories of skating under the summer sun. Memories of an incredible palace with translucent walls. Memories of singing around a purple campfire in the forest. Memories of fantastic creatures even stranger than her father's family.
Memories of her aunt Elsa.
Gerda tended not to reminisce about these ones as often nowadays. It always made her a bit sad to think that maybe they would remain just that – memories of events she would never experience again. It had been around four years now that she had last seen her aunt – she distinctly remembered she had been there for Kai's third birthday – and she had no idea when or if she would see her again. She was fairly sure she used to see her aunt much more often when she was younger, although it was difficult to know precisely since Gerda also knew that at those ages a week had seemed to her an incredibly long span of time. She had visited Aunt Elsa in her village in the forest enough times to have lost count, although she was almost sure that Kai had been there only once or twice - the trip there had always felt incredibly long, even for her, and that would have made it all the more harder for her younger brother. But nowadays, a visit from her aunt or a trip to her village had nearly disappeared from her parents' suggestions of a fun time. The idea was still brought up occasionally, but always ended up being postponed and eventually replaced or forgotten. As far as Gerda knew, there did not seem to be any agenda behind this - things just happened to turn out that way. Her parents still spoke about Elsa, and there did not seem to be any difference with how Gerda remembered them talking about her before, and certainly no mention of wanting to see less of her.
What was sadder, Gerda thought as she watched the huge waves crashing in the harbour, was that she had been beginning to doubt some of her memories about her aunt. Of course, there was no question about the reality of Elsa's existence – portraits of her were easy to find in the castle, including on her mother's desk, and every grown-up in Arendelle still remembered the time when she had been queen of the country. But it was all the stories her mother had told her again and again about her aunt – her powers, the magical winter she had cast for a day upon the country, the tidal wave she had stopped from destroying Arendelle, and more – that were just incredible enough to become indistinguishable after a while from all the fairy tales Gerda was now pretty sure were not real. It did not help that these stories had happened before she was born, which made them part of the distant past, like the Vikings - when her parents were so young that it was easy to think they were different people with little relation to her actual parents. And Gerda had spent so much time dreaming about these stories, replaying them in her head or playing games about them with her brother, that it had become difficult not to view them like any other fairy tale that she had dreamed and played about.
She had witnessed her aunt's magic, of course - she still remembered, during her brother's third birthday, her awe at seeing the water in the fountain grow and expand into this impossible ice sculpture, and how she had clapped her hands before remembering that an eight years old princess was probably not supposed to do that, even if her mother the Queen was also doing it. But nearly four years later, now that she was a mature and responsible twelve years old, she found herself wondering more and more often if she could have simply been watching a particularly good trick that day, that she had been all the more eager to believe in that her head was already filled with dreams and half-forgotten memories about magic. And as for the other stories – the magical creatures who lived with Elsa – they were even easier to disbelieve since Gerda had come to forget most of them, and had not understood everything about them to begin with. There was Olaf, of course, a living proof of her aunt's powers – but Gerda and her brother, like everybody else around them, had long ago ceased to see anything magical in a walking, talking snowman, and in fact had come to think of him more as an elder brother or cousin than as a magical creature, just as Sven was more a surrogate uncle than a reindeer, and the Trolls were their father's family first and living boulders second.
For some reason she had never got around to asking her parents about Elsa. She had not talked about it with her brother either – he never mentioned it, and she suspected he may not remember his aunt as well as she did. He knew about her, through the portraits and the stories, but he did not seem to miss her or her magical world, and Gerda had seen little reason to remind him of something that was apparently not possible any more, and of which even she was beginning to doubt.
The door slamming behind her shook Gerda out of her reverie. She turned around to see Kai diving on one of the couches in front of the chimney.
"Kai, you startled me!" she exclaimed. "Mother told you not to slam doors like that!"
There was no response.
"Did you hear me, Kai?" she called, slowly walking to the large couch.
Her brother remained silent. She stood on tiptoes to look above the back of the couch and discovered the boy curled up on the cushions.
"Kai? What's wrong? You should not keep your shoes on when you are on the couch," she added, almost automatically. One duty of being the big sister was to make sure her brother kept obeying the rules.
There was still no response from the seven years old, although he did move his feet toward the edge of the cushion.
"Kai? Talk to me," Gerda said, walking around the couch to join her brother. He did not move as she reached him. "Have you lost your tongue?"
But Kai simply curled further on himself, mumbling something she did not understand.
Gerda paused. She knew that her brother was resenting this confinement at least as much as her, since he liked playing outside even more than her. But she had never seen him that downcast – or, for that matter, that aloof – since the weather had stuck them inside, and seldom at all since he had been old enough to speak.
"Come on, Kai," she said, sitting near him. "Tell me what is wrong, little brother."
Kai moved slightly closer to her, but remained unresponsive. Gerda decided to appeal to Kai's sweet tooth, which she shared.
"I know what will cheer you up," she said, trying to grab her brother's hand. "How about we go and fetch some sweets in the kitchen?"
"I'm not hungry," Kai articulated at last.
"Are you sick?"
Kai mumbled something that sounded like a "No".
"So… do you want to play instead?" Gerda said. "We could ride our bicycles in the hall…"
"I don't want to play."
Gerda was not as surprised by this unusual response as she could have been some weeks ago. She was normally the one refusing to play when she had to work on her lessons, but Kai had already complained a couple of times about how playing inside was not as fun as outside and that they may just as well not play at all. He had always relented in the end, and she was getting better at snapping him out of it, but he still got into that mood from time to time.
"Cheer up, Kai," she said as enthusiastically as she could. "You can't mope all day because of such a silly thing! Don't let it get to you!"
Kai uncurled and looked at her with his mouth hanging open, as if she had just said something unbelievable.
"A silly thing?" he said, almost indignantly.
"It has happened before, you know, even if you don't remember it," Gerda said, a little surprised by this reaction, but happy to have at least gotten one from him.
"It has happened before? When? What did you do then?"
"Oh, I just waited until it was over," Gerda said with a shrug, wondering why the weather was suddenly concerning her brother so much.
"And you were not sad?" Kai asked incredulously.
"Sad? Not really. You get used to it, you know. After a while you learn not to care that much."
"You… don't… care?" he said in a strangled voice, as if he had trouble getting each word out.
"Well, a bit, yes, but I'm not letting that get to me and neither should you. There are so many more interesting things to do!" she said as energetically as she could.
But Kai kept looking at her intently as if he was trying to find out if she was playing a trick on him.
"You are really not sad?" he said again. "Even if you don't want to show it?"
"It's no use being sad about this," she said with a wave of the hand towards the windows and the horrible weather tormenting the city beyond. "We can't do anything about it. It's annoying, sure, but it won't last forever. We just have to be patient until it's over."
"NO!" Kai shouted, jumping from the couch. "I don't want it to be over!"
In his movement he bumped into the small table in front of the couch, dislodging Gerda's mirror and sending it crashing on the floor.
"My mirror!" Gerda cried in shock.
The tinkle of the glass as the mirror hit the ground sounded far louder to Gerda's ears than it should have. She was not particularly obsessed with her appearance, but she liked her mirror a lot, if only because it had been her mother's gift for her latest birthday. She admired the intricate work on the handle, and loved to look at herself making faces when she felt in a mischievous mood probably unworthy of a responsible twelve years old.
"You broke my mirror!" she said, kneeling down next to the wreckage. The shock at the sudden destruction was all the more sharp that she knew she should have placed it back into its box instead of leaving it lying around, if only for a few minutes – but could she have expected her brother to come blundering around?
As she tried to pick up her mirror among the shards of glass without cutting herself, she heard her brother mutter something. She looked up and saw Kai watching her with another curious expression she had trouble interpreting - it was not a happy one, but it was not sympathetic either.
"What's wrong with you today, Kai?" she said.
"You're sad now?" Kai asked, as if this was the worst thing Gerda could do.
"Yes I'm sad! What are you playing at? Were you trying to make me sad? It's not very ni… Ow!"
She looked down to see a drop of blood running on her left ring finger. The cut was small, but very painful. The mirror shard had been sharp.
"Now look what you've done!" she said, sucking at her finger. "You've made me cut myself." It was petty and untrue, but Gerda was growing annoyed.
"You were really not sad before?" Kai asked in an almost pleading tone, as if seeing his sister sad had become his dearest wish. "Just a little?"
"No, I wasn't sad!" Gerda said. "Why should I have been sad?"
"Because… because…" Kai stammered. "Because of, you know… that!" he said with a gesture toward the windows.
"Why does that bother you so much all of a sudden, Kai?"
"You… it really doesn't bother you? At all?" her brother asked in a small voice.
"I told you already, no! Why should it?"
"But… you bother more about your mirror?" Kai said, still sounding incredibly pained.
"Yes, I do! I really liked my mirror!"
To her surprise Kai backed away, looking at her with so much disgust that she briefly glanced over her shoulder to see if there was something scary behind her.
"You're shellfish!" Kai cried.
"What did you say?" she said, standing up.
"You like your mirror more than us! You're… you're horrible!"
"I'm horrible?" Gerda shouted back. "I'm not the one who broke my mirror and who wants to make people sad!"
"I don't care about your stupid mirror!" Kai shouted. "I hate it! I'm happy that it's broken!"
Gerda staggered back as if she had been slapped, something which had rarely happened to her in any case. She and Kai had had rows before, of course, but they had never really been much more serious than deciding on what they would be playing at. This level was completely new. And Gerda had not been in the best frame of mind to begin with for dealing with this as maturely as was expected of a twelve year old in her thirteenth year, especially with her mirror lying in pieces at her feet.
She felt her anger rise. The maintained ban on every outside activity had also been taking its toll on her mood, even if she had been doing her best to find other ways of passing the time. Her brother's increasingly incoherent behaviour had been gradually grating on her nerves, and the double pain at the loss of her mirror and from her cut finger had definitely not arranged matters.
"Oh yes? Well then I'm happy that you're sad!" she shouted back.
Kai looked at her in shock, and Gerda felt a shameful satisfaction at having finally scored a point. But his inexplicable anger did not abate.
"I hate you!" he shouted back. "I don't want to see you ever again!"
"Good!" she shouted. "I don't want to see you ever again either!"
"I don't want to see you ever again ever forever ever!" Kai shouted back without missing a beat.
He lunged forward and stomped on one of the mirror shards with a shout of defiance, then ran out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
"I told you not to slam the door!" Gerda shouted after him.
She stomped her foot in frustration, but that was not enough. She ran to the door and yanked it open. Kai was already out of sight.
"You're just a brat!" she shouted at the empty corridor.
Gerda closed the door with just enough restraint to not slam it too hard, then reopened it and shouted "And it's selfish, not shellfish!" before closing it again.
She began pacing up and down the room. At a moment like this she would have liked to run in the yard to blow off some steam, and the fact that it was impossible made her even more upset. Eventually she picked up her broken mirror, collecting as many shards as she could, and retreated to her room. She made a point not to look at her brother's door on the other side of the corridor, so that he could see how much she was ignoring him in case he had been spying from behind it.
It took the princess some time to cool down enough to consider seeing her brother again and making up with him. Another moment passed before she was ready to accept the idea that she should make the first step if he did not. And after some more time, during which Kai did not come to make the first step, she had regained enough of her senses to be somewhat ashamed at her own childish outburst, completely unworthy of her responsible and mature age, and decided to go in search of him.
Gerda left her room and crossed the corridor. She hesitated for a second in front of Kai's closed door. They had never thought twice about entering each other's rooms - in fact, they had only recently stopped sharing the same one, one drawback of being a responsible twelve years old princess being that you were apparently supposed to have your own room. They were still close enough anyway for this never to have been a problem.
"Kai?" she called eventually. "Are you here?"
There was no answer. She wondered if she should knock or directly try opening the door. Having such a violent row with her brother was rare enough for her to lack a definite protocol for such a situation.
"I'm, er, I'm sorry I shouted at you," she said eventually. "So, er, I wanted to, er, see if you were all right?"
Gerda waited a little more, then tried opening the door. It was not locked - neither she nor her brother had ever even considered locking their doors, and their mother seemed to have something against locked doors anyway. Gerda contemplated an empty room, made gloomier by the pale light from the grey sky filtering in through the window.
"Kai? Are you there?" she called.
She quickly searched the room, but she was not surprised when she did not find Kai in any of his favourite hiding spots. They had played hide and seek often enough for her to know all of them, to the point that he had understood by now that it was useless to try hiding in his room any more.
She went back into the corridor, calling out to him. She visited each of their favourite spots inside the castle, but he was not in any of them. She stopped a few servants to ask them if they had not seen her brother, but none of them had.
Gerda began to worry. Kai's behaviour had been incredibly erratic today, and she wondered if that could have caused him to do something stupid or dangerous, unless maybe he was simply sick. What gnawed at her was that she felt responsible for this - maybe if she had not gotten angry herself and had managed to find the right words, she would have been able to calm him enough to eventually learn what had upset him. But she had done the exact opposite.
Gerda realised her wandering had brought her near her mother's study. She hesitated a moment in front of the door. Her mother had told them that she would be working today and was not to be disturbed, but Gerda felt increasingly worried about her brother, and was beginning to long for reassurance. It may not be fitting for a responsible twelve years old, but right now she felt too anxious to find an alternative. Besides, she thought after a while, her mother would have wanted to be informed quickly if something bad had happened, and maybe she would know where Kai could be, if he was not already with her. Happy with this justification, Gerda went to knock on her mother's door.
Queen Anna of Arendelle was sitting at her desk and looking sullenly at the stack of papers piled in front of her. Once again, she had postponed for too long something she did not like to do and now found herself late, with no other option than to spend her whole afternoon working on it. Anna was quite comfortable with most of her queenly duties – she had always looked forward to organising and participating in any celebration she could find, she enjoyed meeting officials from the Kingdom and from faraway lands, and she had come to actually like writing and responding to diplomatic letters – but the one black spot was the finances. Even though her role was limited to signing the various balance summaries of the kingdom that had been established by her advisers and their clerks, it was still a task she dreaded. All those rows of numbers seemed to dance whenever she tried to make sense of them as if they were doing their best to become harder to read. And she took her role too seriously to even consider signing all of this without reading it first.
She was engrossed in the study of the revenue generated by the wood gathering taxes when a discreet knock on her door brought a not unwelcome distraction.
"Come in," she called.
She turned to discover her daughter Gerda inching cautiously inside.
"Mama… I mean, Mother? I'm sorry for disturbing you, I know you said you were working but…"
"It's OK," Anna said readily. "Just keep it short."
"I wanted to know if you had seen Kai?"
"Kai? No, not since lunch. Why?" Anna winked. "You know that I will not help you if you two have been playing hide and seek."
"No, it's not that, Mam… Mother. We, uh… we had a bit of a row and, uh, I wanted to apologise."
Anna rose from her chair and went to her daughter. Gerda seemed really worried.
"Why do you want to apologise?" she asked gently. "Did you start it?"
"No, he did! I mean… I mean, he was not making any sense, and I told him to stop, and, uh, he broke my mirror, but it was an accident, and then he started telling some nonsense on how I was horrible and did not care about anyone and that he was happy my mirror was broken, so I, uh, I yelled back at him and, uh, told him I did not want to see him again. But I did not mean it… Well, at the moment I meant it a little, but I was angry. So now I wanted to find him and apologise," Gerda finished, looking down.
Anna crouched to be on the level of her daughter and gently laid her hands on her shoulders.
"It is good of you to want to make the first step, Gerda. You just have to let him some time too. I am sure he is realising too that he did not want to tell you that. He's probably sulking somewhere, and he will come out when he's ready."
"But I've looked everywhere, and I have not found him!"
"Really everywhere?" Anna said, feeling a pang of concern for the first time.
"Well, er… not everywhere, but I tried all of his hiding places and he was not in any of them."
"Did you try the old chimney in the blue room?"
"Yes! That's where he hid last week!"
"And on top of the cupboard in the ballroom?"
"Ye… wait, did you say the top? There is no way to reach it!"
"There is if you climb to the tapestries" Anna said with another wink. "For somebody light like your brother it should be possible."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh yes," Anna said confidently. She stopped short of saying she had done it multiple times when she was Kai's age, and even some time after that. "Did you check inside the old suit of horse armour in the workshop?"
"Wh… what? There is no suit of armour in the workshop! Which workshop?"
"You never checked the old workshop in the garden? There is an ancient suit of armour made for a horse in the corner… It is quite cosy inside, really."
"I have never seen it!"
"I will show you later." Anna smiled at her daughter. "There are still hiding places you have not discovered in this castle, my little Gerda."
"Do you know all of them, Mama? I mean, Mother?"
"A lot of them," Anna said. "I did a lot of exploring when I was Kai's age. And your age too. And… well, I played a lot inside this castle."
"But Kai never found all those places! I mean… I don't think he did."
"Maybe he found one, and he is hiding there right now."
"But he… we never had such a row. I mean… almost never. He seemed so… so angry at me!"
"This weather is getting on our nerves," Anna said, standing up and looking at the window. "I know you would like to go out and play, but it would be too dangerous with this wind." Anna glanced toward her desk. "I'm sorry, Gerda, I have some work to do but when I'm done… Tell you what," she said with a smile, "after I am finished, I will show you and Kai some of my favourite hiding places when I was your age. Not all of them - it's more fun when you discover them by yourself."
"OK," Gerda said, looking unconvinced.
"Don't worry, my little Gerda. Rows always happen between brothers and sisters, even when they love each other very much."
"Really?" Gerda asked in a small voice.
"Look, you stopped being angry with him, didn't you? He will do the same. He loves you just as you love him. Maybe more than either of you realise. This is very important to keep in mind, believe me."
"Oh, er, thanks, Mama," Gerda said.
Anna leaned down and kissed her daughter on the forehead.
"You can still look for him if you want to, of course. When I am finished with this work," she added with a gesture toward her desk, "I will help you. And you will see that he has forgotten this spat just as you have."
"OK, thank you, Mother," Gerda said.
One hand on the door handle, Gerda looked at her mother. The mention of the weather had reminded her of her musings earlier on, and with it, the questions she had about her aunt. She had felt some relief at her mother's reassurance about Kai's whereabouts, but the question she had been asking herself had now risen to the fore of her mind.
She had never dared asking her parents about Elsa, and she was not sure now was the right moment to do it - in fact it probably was not - but she wondered if there was such a thing as the right moment for such a question. And suddenly she found herself unable to postpone it further, especially after her mother's comment on rows between siblings and her own very recent experience on the subject.
"Mother?"
"Yes?" said the Queen, who had half-heartedly turned back toward her desk.
"Why don't we see Aunt Elsa any more?" Gerda said in a small voice.
"Wait, what?" her mother said, turning back to her. "Of course we still see Elsa!"
"We have not seen her this year. And not the one before either."
"Are you sure? She was there for your birthday, wasn't she?"
"I… don't think so, Mother," Gerda said in the same small voice. "Not my twelfth birthday anyway. And not the eleventh either."
"Yes, you're right," the Queen said pensively. "Time passes so fast!"
"So, er… why don't we see her any more?"
"We still do see her, Gerda. We just… see her less often than before. It's… well, we are all busy, and it takes some time to visit her…"
"But when was the last time we saw her?"
"Well it must have been… uh." Her mother looked at her desk. "Look" she said, pointing to a photograph on the wall near it, "she was here for Kai's birthday."
"Yes, but I think he was three," Gerda said, looking at the picture in the frame. She faintly remembered Kai and herself pestering the photographer with questions about his strange device. "He's very small."
"OK, we have all been busy recently," her mother said again. "But your aunt is all right. She and I write a lot of letters to each other. Look," she said, opening a drawer, "here are those I got from her."
Gerda looked at the stack of papers inside the drawer. They were a bit crumpled, as if someone had folded and unfolded them, and some of them were made of a strange material that almost looked like cloth. She glanced at the letter on top of the stack and noticed it was dated back to more than 6 months ago.
"Do you write to her too?"
"Of course! I wrote to tell her about you having shed your last milk tooth, and Kai taking his first horse riding lesson."
"Oh. That… that was last spring, right?" Gerda said, still in a small voice. She had been able to ride with Kai for a few months now, at least until the weather had locked them all inside.
"Yes," the Queen said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. "I will probably have to write to her some of these days, there is a lot I need to tell her."
Gerda looked at her mother. She was not used to seeing this expression on her face. It almost looked like… guilt? Or maybe shame? These were not expressions grown-ups were supposed to have, especially when talking to children. It made her uncomfortable.
"So… you and Aunt Elsa… you did not have… a row?"
"What? No, Gerda, Elsa and I did not have a row! Why would we? I love her! It's just… well, you see, being a queen takes some time, as you know, and Elsa… Elsa does not have a lot of time either. She has a lot to do looking after the Enchanted Forest. So we may have less time for each other than before but that does not change a thing. Remember this, Gerda," her mother said in a serious voice, "it's not because you are not all the time with someone you love that you don't love them."
"So… we'll see Aunt Elsa again?"
"Oh, of course. I'll write to her, and, if she has time, she will come over, or we will go and visit her." Anna glanced out of the window. "As soon as the weather is better anyway."
"Thank you, Mother," Gerda said eventually. "I will go looking for Kai. I won't disturb you any more."
"You never disturb me," her mother said heartily, smiling again. She hugged her and led her to the door. "Did you ask your father?" she asked as Gerda was leaving the room. "Maybe Kai went to see him."
"Not yet," Gerda said. "Where is he now?"
"Probably in the stables again," her mother said. "He wanted to make sure Sven was completely recovered."
"Oh, yes, the doctor said this morning he would be completely fine by tomorrow... I will go and ask him."
"Tell him I will join him as soon as I am finished with these papers!" she called to Gerda as she went along the corridor.
Kai ran through the castle as fast as he could, as if the speed could make everything go away - the stables, his sad father, his horrible shellfish sister. He wanted someone to come and tell him everything would be OK, and he did not want anybody to talk to him. He hoped his sister would try to find him to comfort him just so that he could show her how he did not let himself be comforted. He wanted to find some place where to curl up and cry, and he wanted to run until everybody was left behind - maybe then everything would resolve itself and would turn out to have been a bad dream. But so far his attempts at waking up kept falling. The crushing despair that had pushed him to reach for his sister had now mostly been replaced by a vague, undefined anger that was aimed as much at her as at the rest of the universe, himself included.
Not entirely by chance, Kai found himself at the end of a corridor in front of a door that led outside. He knew that this door was rarely locked, and he had often used it to go out and play with his sister before she became horrible and when they were still allowed to go outside and when his world was not going to end.
Kai had been wondering how far he needed to go to leave forever and never see his sister again. It was likely to involve going outside at some point, which was forbidden. Then again, Kai did not feel like obeying the rules right now - this was his sister's thing, and he did not want to be like his sister today. Without really thinking at what he was doing, Kai yanked the door open and looked at the world beyond. A violent gust of wind, carrying some dead leaves, flew past him. Beyond the gallery on which the door opened he could see the main courtyard, and at the far end the large gates opening toward the bridge leading to the city. Even in this bad weather, the outside world had never felt so inviting.
The prince stepped through the threshold. To his mild surprise the wind was not as strong as he had thought it would be after watching it from inside the castle. More dead leaves flew around him, but none blew in his face.
His heart beating with the excitation of disobedience, Kai took a few more steps into the gallery. It was not as if he was going very far, after all, the door was still open behind him, and he could still come back inside in a bound if someone came. But a few steps did not feel far enough to forget the pain, and were probably not enough either to never see his sister again. Kai took a couple more steps. He only felt a gentle breeze on his face, even though everything around him that was not tied down was violently flapping in the wind.
And then something unexpected and wonderful happened. As he took another step, a gust of wind suddenly blew in his back, pushing him forward. His step turned into an incredibly long jump that propelled him over a couple of yards. Kai looked behind him but could not see anything apart from dead leaves dancing in the wind.
The marvellous sensation of being lifted by air alone evoked a distant memory, as something that could have happened to him a very long time ago or in a dream, but he did not delve upon it. Instead, he tried jumping forward again. The same gust of wind caught him as he rose, and he covered another impressive distance in a single bound. He would have easily won if he had been able to jump like that during a jumping contest with his sister.
Thinking about his sister brought back the memories he had tried to forget and his promise never to see her again. Kai scowled as he landed, and immediately jumped again, letting out a small giggle as the gust of wind faithfully propelled him forward. And for a second, he forgot about the terrible sadness and his horrible, uncaring, shellfish sister.
Kai took a couple more giant jumps, then paused as he realised he had passed the gates of the castle and now stood at the entrance of the bridge that led to the city. If going outside was forbidden during this weather, crossing the bridge unaccompanied was not allowed even during normal times. But nobody was watching him today. And anyway, Gerda had told him she never wanted to see him again, his mother had been locked in her study by her advisors, and his father…
Giant waves crashed below the bridge, and sometimes on it as well. Kai could see various debris carried by the wind tumbling into the raging sea and briefly surfacing, sometimes even landing on the bridge after a particularly strong wave. But as he looked, it seemed to him that the sea around the bridge was calming down. It was still waving furiously – he could see how the masts of the ships in the harbour shook in the distance – but not so much near the bridge. And the wind around him was still not stronger than a breeze, except when it was pushing him forward.
Kai took another of his giant jumps, and the wind did not fail him. He landed on the bridge, at some distance from the palace gates. The sensation had felt as exhilarating as before, and the bridge seemed as safe as it always was, if only much wetter. Kai looked at the city in the distance. He had never been allowed to go there alone, and it felt really inviting now, even with the wind raging across it. At least it would be a happier place than the castle.
And Kai jumped again across the bridge, and again, crossing it faster than if he had been running or riding a bicycle, perhaps even faster than a horse. He giggled as he reached the city and ran across it, trying to forget the castle he left behind, his sister who did not care about anyone and did not want to see him again, and above all what was happening in the stables.
Around him, dead leaves danced in the wind.
Author's Notes: This is the fic that Frozen 2 inspired me. I began writing this in January 2020 (yes, I've been very slow), and I had no idea at the time that I would soon be confined in my home just like the children are in this fic.
This chapter is probably the one that took me the most time to write and edit. The children's' spat was never right, and even then I'm not entirely satisfied with it.
I used the names of Gerda and Kai for the children because that's the names of the characters in the Snow Queen fairy tale (the one Frozen is inspired from), and this story will have some similarity with it. I know they are supposed to be the names of two of the servants in Frozen, but who knows, maybe Anna decided to name her children from them. Or these servants were named differently in this version of the Frozen universe.
I did not give any description of Gerda and Kai because that's something I like leaving for the readers to imagine. Also, there are a lot of very good fanarts all over the Internet imagining how Anna's children would look like. Just pick the ones you like most :)