I'm Afraid of What I'm Risking if I Follow You

Part 8

I'm Afraid of What I'm Risking if I Follow You

Chapter 8

Once word got out around the village that Hans knew of Ahtohallan and that he and Elsa were preparing for travel, the vibe around the community quickly changed. All of a sudden, it was preparing for the warmth and teaching Hans about what to expect. Songs became more frequent, the villagers often goading Hans to sing with them. Elsa noted that a few of the girls would look up to him with awe in their eyes whenever he opened his mouth, and she hated that it made her cheeks flush.

Yelena started to take more measures to heal Hans, as well. The medicines and aloe remedies came more frequently, like the sooner he got into rehabilitation, the sooner they could go.

With the fall months coming up, Elsa realized it'd been almost a year since she'd joined the Northuldra. A year since she'd been to Ahtohallan. She wondered if the memories she'd been shown were still there, frozen in time. Replaying her past as she started to pave her future.

She wondered what Hans would think, if or when he saw them. Her whole life, open to him as his would open to her.

But now the underlying question remained: how would they get to Ahtohallan and cross the Dark Sea if Hans couldn't interact with the Nokk in his true form? Elsa started drawing crude maps in her journal, her mother's scarf wrapped around her shoulders as she ripped up plans and wondered just how one could cross the sea as a mere human. Her parents died in a fully stocked ship trying to find it.

Maybe if they took the sea the whole time and Elsa kept creating ice, she could create a path... but what about when the waves started getting too high? What would happen if she let go of the Nokk and Hans couldn't hold on?

Perhaps the best approach was to take the land route as much as possible, and then conquer the last leg of the journey on the Dark Sea, like she'd done before.

But that last time, it was just her. She didn't have to worry about Anna or Olaf, or anyone else she could potentially hurt. Strange—at the beginning of all of this, it didn't matter to her if Hans made it or not.

Now, she had to know the secrets of his past. She had to see this through, and Hans had to be with her, whether or not she liked it.

Frowning, Elsa realized that might not work, either—she'd been able to use her powers to create the path, to conquer the waves. And even then, the water had felt just like that: water. It wasn't freezing, like she suspected it could have been to others.

Then again, they were coming up on the end of summer, the warmest time of the year. They might just luck out here.

Still, Elsa didn't think Hans could handle the waves, much less on the back of the Nokk. And definitely much less after recovering from an injury, no matter how much holistic healing Yelena wanted to use on him.

Elsa let out a frustrated cry, crumbling up another plan.

Of course, that's when Hans decided to walk into the hut, Bruni perched on his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked, but his tone was playful.

"This trek to Ahtohallan," she replied. "I have no idea how I'm going to get you there while keeping the Nokk in his frozen state without you dying in some way."

Hans sighed, coming in to sit beside her. They always seemed to be inching just a bit closer whenever they sat together now, and Elsa hated that she couldn't shift away without Hans drawing attention to it. "I've been trying to wrap my mind around it, as well," he admitted.

Bruni scurried from Elsa's shoulder to her crumbled papers, setting them ablaze. But unlike her snow, which would just melt, these flames would keep burning.