Frozen Heart (Kristanna & Elsamaren)

Chapter 11 • Anna/Elsa

I jolt awake, panting and sweating. The flame in the lantern has long since burnt out. There isn't any sound or light outside, so I'm guessing everyone retired for the night. I push the door open slightly and wrap my cape around myself as the cold air hits me. I step out, shutting the door again quietly. The fire is out, with just a few small embers remaining in the ashes. Suddenly it hits me: Elsa isn't sleeping right here where she said she'd be. I quickly run back inside and collapse back onto the blankets.

"Kristoff..." I whisper. He stirs a little bit, but he doesn't wake up.

"Kristoff!" I say again, this time shaking his shoulder a bit. He sits up and rubs his eyes and looks at me.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"Elsa. She's gone," I say.

"What?"

"Elsa isn't here! She must've left so she could keep going without us! We have to go after her!" I say.

"Anna...she could be miles upon miles away already. We'd never catch up to her," Kristoff says, taking my hands in his. I'm shaking with a combination of the cold and the fear.

"But...she's out there, all by herself...I have to go after her!" I say, climbing to my feet.

"Anna no! You can't go out there on your own! You'll hurt yourself. You could die. And if you're all alone there will be no one to help you if something goes wrong!" He says.

"Then come with me. We have to find her..." I beg.

"Okay. But we'll leave in the morning. It's too cold to go now. But I promise you. Right at the break of dawn, we'll go. Okay?" He says, putting his hands on my cheeks to comfort me.

"Okay..." I say. He nods at me and pulls me into his arms, kissing the top of my head.

"Lay back down Anna. It's gonna be okay I promise," he says. I nod and he lays down. I lay down by his side, using his bicep as a pillow. He pulls a blanket over us and I snuggle up to him. But I'm not going back to sleep. I'm going to go off on my own to find Elsa. She could be hurt already.

I know Kristoff is asleep by the way his breathing has slowed. I gently push the blanket off of myself and get up carefully. He'll be out until morning. I walk outside and shut the door quietly again. Olaf must've gone with Elsa because he's nowhere to be seen. Sven is peacefully sleeping over with some of the other reindeer. I walk slowly out of the village, heading north. It's extremely cold and quiet. Because of the chill of the air, there's no sounds from crickets or frogs. There's an occasional sound of a twig snapping, probably from raccoons or deer. I wrap my cape even tighter around myself, practically hugging myself. I've never been one for the outdoors. And being outside in the woods, alone, at night, just makes me scared.

Eventually, the sun begins to come up. The chill is slightly less now that there's a bit of sunshine. The morning air is cool and crisp. Then I come across a few boot prints in some soft mud. They're clearly high heeled boots. She was definitely here.

Elsa's POV:

Somehow, through all of my walking, I ended up in a desolate area of the forest. There's no grass and all of the trees are dead. There's a winding riverbed that has clearly been dried up for a long time. The ground is covered in sand and dust. Suddenly I feel Gale brush past my dress. He gets my attention and flies up to a large wooden post, expanding the ratty old flag that is hanging at the top.

"What...how can it be..." I whisper to myself. I feel my eyes tearing up. Mother and father's ship. Destroyed and resting in the dried up riverbed. I slide down the dirt hill and run inside the shop through a giant hole right in the middle. I wander through the ship, looking for anything that might give me a clue as to where they were really going that night they died. I walk past a row of benches and something falls open. I jump and turn around and see a tube with a scroll in it. Of course! Arendellian ships always have waterproof compartments! I crouch down and grab the tube. I remove the contents and unroll them on the bench, using scraps of wood to hold them open.

"The end of the ice age...the river found but lost...magic source...Elsa source...?" I whisper to myself.

"Look, this is a map!" Olaf says. Oh right, I forgot he followed me.

"They travelled north...they planned to cross the dark sea to get to...Ahtohallan...it's real...it's...it's real!" I say and jump up. I fold the map up and tuck it into the side of my boot.

"I know what to do! Come on Olaf!" I say. We run out of the ship and climb back up to the top of the hill. I have a good view of everything from here. I take the map out and scan my surroundings.

"Okay...north west-ish from here. Olaf, you should go back. We can't both cross the dark sea together. It won't work," I say.

"But I don't know how to get back. What if you get hurt," he says.

"I'll be fine," I say. I form a small boat of ice and give him a goodbye hug. Then I slam my foot down on the ground and the boat slides down the trail of ice I made, heading back down towards where the Northuldra village is. Then I start towards the direction of the dark sea.

When I reach the beach of the dark sea, it's stormy and dark. The waves are extremely high and the water is lukewarm. I take my boots off and my cape so they don't get in my way. I grab the map from my boot and take one last good look at it.

As far north as I can go.

I shove the map back into my boot and get a running start. As soon as my feet hit the surface of the water, ice forms, keeping me from sinking. Naturally, I get wiped out by the waves a couple times. Then I jump through the wave and land on a large rock. I create a slide of ice down from the rock and then take off hopping across the water, straight towards the next wave. This wave is double the size of the last. I create an ice path up the wave but it's too big and breaks it all, plunging me deep into the water. But then I see a horse materialize in front of me. It's twice as big as me. It looks at me funnily, like it's sizing me up, then suddenly disappears. That's how I know I'm in hot water. Looks like I have another element to tame.