Eleven years fly by faster than Gale's air mail, and a new day starts in Arendelle as the rising sun shines through Heidi's bedroom window. A beam of sunlight shines through a water glass on the nightstand next to her bed, concentrating the light onto her eyes. A sleeping Heidi squints her shut eyes in discomfort and rolls to the other side facing the wall. Then a knock comes from outside her bedroom door. "Princess Heidi, it's almost noon, time to get up." one of the castle's female staff called from outside her door.
Heidi rolls to lay flat on her back and groans in annoyance and exhaustion as she lays still for a few seconds before getting up. Heidi pulls off the covers and walks over to her dressing table and pours water from her water pitcher into her wash bowl on the table. She splashes water on her face and grabs a towel to dry off. She lowers the towel away from her face and looks at her reflection in the mirror revealing a sixteen-year-old Heidi.
Heidi stares at herself in the mirror for a second then blows a raspberry at her reflection and ruffles her hair. Still tired, she walks over to her large wardrobe against the wall and picks out her clothes for the day. Heidi prefers to wear trousers rather than dresses and sleeve shirts rather than a royal bodice. Heidi likes to wear clothes that are traditional from the Northuldran heritage and her father's commoner style rather than her mother's royal customs. She wears a plain bodice over top of her green wool shirt with a decorative wrap around her waist and a long skirt that has slits on both sides of her legs. She also likes to roll the sleeves up on her wool shirts because she says it gives her more freedom and is more comfortable to wear than long sleeves and royal dresses.
Heidi has always been rough around the edges by nature, even without her brother's influence on her as it has become more noticeable as she aged. She has never been the one to play the part of royalty, even though it is expected of her. She will dress formally, but only when important guests visit the kingdom or during parties and social events.
Even though she is still young, Heidi has already surpassed Anna's height by both head and shoulders by a few inches. She is also is built bigger, has broader shoulders, more muscular, and even has a deeper voice than her mother. Even Heidi's personality between her and her mother has grown more different over time as Heidi mirrors more of Kristoff and Elsa rather than Anna, whereas Joseff is more like his mother in more ways than his father.
Even Joseff has started to show minor differences between himself and his father. When Joseff was a young child, he had Kristoff's golden hair, but over the years, his hair has developed a copper tint to it. And his nose is large like his father's but the end of his nose points outward slightly, a trait that comes from his mother and grandfather. And like his mother, he is more talkative and sociable than his father and can always make a crowd laugh.
Over time, he has become quite the lady's man around the kingdom and he has been deemed the most eligible bachelor in all of Arendelle. He would often take afternoon walks around the town plaza and would stroll into a group of young women and start 'flirting' with them, to which Heidi had always found annoying and inappropriate (especially for a Prince).
The theory of children being exact copies of their parents that they portray as is not always true, but that doesn't mean they are completely different. Both Heidi and Joseff are practically spitting images of their parents with only small differences portraying the opposite parent, but anyone can tell who they belong to just by their faces.
However, Anna has noticed over the years that Heidi's personality seems more like Elsa's rather than herself. She's very secluded, secretive, and doesn't always tell the whole truth. Sometimes Anna wishes that wasn't so.
Heidi steps out of her room, yawns, and starts walking down the hallway. As Heidi is walking, she hears "Hey Heidi!" from behind her. Heidi stops walking and turns around to see a nineteen-year-old Joseff running after her, he stops next to Heidi and greets her. Heidi smiles at her big brother and the two walk down the hallway together. "Say, Heidi." Joseff asked proudly with his hands behind his back "Have any plans for today?" without looking at her brother she answers "Not really, why?" Joseff shrugs his shoulders and says "Well since I'm not studying today, I thought if you wanted to join me and Olaf on an ice harvesting trip?" Heidi stops walking "Ice harvesting?" Heidi asked while raising an eyebrow in confusion. Joseff also stops walking and looks back to see his sister's puzzled look. "Why do you want me to go ice harvesting?" Heidi asked crossing her arms.
Heidi was confused as to why Joseff had asked if she wanted to come on an ice harvesting trip when he had never asked her before. She brushed it off thinking that maybe Joseff wanted to spend some quality time with his only sibling. In the past when the two were younger, they did almost everything together and competed with each other at nearly everything that they did. Now that both are in their late teen years, they both do their own separate thing and don't really socialize with each other as much as they used to. Joseff takes a step forward toward her and explains "Because we haven't spent any time together for a while, and I thought I would invite you to come." Well, at least she stood corrected. Heidi says, lowering her arms while shrugging her shoulders "I don't even know how to harvest ice."
Kristoff had taken Joseff on several ice harvesting trips since he was five, but never Heidi. She figured it was a father-son activity that the two would share to have some manly bounding time together, so she left it as that. And besides, she found other activities to be more her style, such as archery, horseback riding, and fencing. From the time Heidi could walk, Heidi had taken a liking to General Mattias and would follow him around like a duckling. He didn't seem to mind it, infact, he found her company enjoyable and gave him a sense of having her as a apprentice. And as promised, her most favorite activity was always sword training which became her most favorite pastime.
Even though Joseff is raised and educated as a Prince, he prefers the work of his late father. Even now as King, Kristoff still wants to practice his profession whenever he has free time and wants to pass down the art of ice harvesting to his son. It took Kristoff a while to get a hang of the whole 'being King' thing as he is only 'King consort' being married to the Queen of Arendelle and doesn't hold much power in the court.
He was so nervous at the wedding when the bishop placed the crown upon his head and announced them and Anna as 'Queen Anna and King Kristoff of Arendelle.' Even after eighteen years of being married to the Queen of Arendelle, Kristoff still isn't used to being referred to as 'King'. Kristoff doesn't do much of the Kingly responsibilities like political talks, important paperwork, or handling public affairs since that is mostly Anna's job and he is just her consort. But he does help the citizens with their needs and is a smooth talker when it comes to making business deals with trade partners as he is the official 'ice master and deliverer' of the kingdom.
Joseff thinks about teasing Heidi because he knows if he teases her about it, she will most definitely come. "I mean you don't have to come if it's too difficult for you." Joseff sarcastically says while pridefully raising his head and looking away from Heidi with a smirk on his face. Heidi clamps her hands into a fist, she hates getting teased by people! "You're just pulling a block of ice out of the water, how hard can it be?!" Heidi expresses using her hands. Joseff then turned his head halfway to look at Heidi with the smirk still on his face "So you'll come then?" Heidi replied aggressively "You bet I'll go!" Joseff then turned fully around to face her and said "Well alright then, I'll see you at the stables in one hour." Joseff said with a smirk before walking down the hallway leaving Heidi still standing by herself.
Later, Heidi meets Joseff at the stables where he's attaching Sven's harness to Kristoff's sleigh. She noticed Joseff wearing his ice-harvesting clothes and all the ice-cutting and harvesting gear in the sleigh. Olaf was sitting in the back of the sleigh when he spotted Heidi walking up to them "Yay! Heidi's coming to join us!" Heidi chuckles as she rolls her eyes "Hi Olaf." Heidi notices that they are taking Kristoff's sleigh and Heidi is worried that their father might notice it's missing from the stables. Joseff looks back at Heidi and sees the expression on her face. "Oh yeah, uh Dad said we can take Sven and his sleigh." Apparently Kristoff would know of Joseff's plan to go ice harvesting if he allowed him to take his sleigh, but Heidi doesn't fully believe him but accepts it. Before Heidi could climb up in the sleigh, Joseff handed her folded clothes.
When Heidi took it, she looked down at it and then raised her eyes to look at her brother "What's this?" she asked. Olaf replied happily "It's your new ice-harvesting clothes!" Heidi unfolds the leather vest and puts it up to her chest. It was a dark-tinted green with the Arendelle crested sewn on the shoulder by Anna. Heidi looks up at Olaf, Sven, and her brother and says "I'll change in the stable." She grabs the rest of the attire and closes the stable door behind her. In three minutes, Heidi changed into her ice-harvesting clothes.
A grey wool sweater, a dark green leather parka vest, dark grey pants, and green boots with a red decorative wrap around her waist. Heidi was finished tying her hair back into a bun and put on her wool hat and said "Well? What do you guys think?" Joseff crossed his arms as he leaned against the sleigh and said "Not bad." Olaf responds "It suits you." and Sven grunts in response. Joseff helps Heidi into the sleigh and the four of them head out the castle gates.
In an hour's ride the young royal siblings, the talking snowman, and the reindeer reach the frozen lake in the mountains.
Joseff, Heidi, and Olaf climb out of the sleigh and start unloading the gear from the back of the sleigh. Joseff carries a large ice saw and Heidi carries a pair of ice tongs as Olaf follows dragging an ice pick. Heidi stands next to her brother on the frozen lake "Okay, now what?" Joseff remains silent for a moment then looks at his sister, smiles, and says "Now we start to cut the ice." Joseff raises his ice saw in the air and then plummets down impaling the ice. After a few minutes of Joseff cutting rows of ice, it was Heidi's job to get the broken-up blocks out of the lake.
Heidi took her tongs and tried to lift the ice block out of the water but it kept slipping out of grip and back into the water. Joseff was already almost done with his row and looks to see Heidi hasn't even gotten her first block out of the water. Joseff walks over to her and asks "Need any help?" Heidi growls in frustration "No! I can crush mountains, level the Nordic lands, and train the sea to obey my every whim! Surly I can get one stupid ice block out of the water!"
Heidi struggles to get a grip on the ice, then finally, she stands up straight and says "You know what? To hell with it!" She throws down her tongs and uses her telekinesis magic to lift the ice out of the water and sets it on the ice next to her as Joseff just frowns. Heidi notices her brother glaring at her "What?" she asked uncomfortable with the way he's looking at her. Joseff says annoyed as she crosses his arms "That's cheating." Heidi responds somewhat irritated "I don't think it matters how you get the ice out of the water as long as you get it out."
Joseff says lowering his arms "But that takes away the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction because you put hard work into it!" Heidi just glares back at him with complete irritation, sending knives into her brother's soul then she speaks as she starts walking away "Whatever, I'm leaving." Olaf starts following her "Why Heidi?" he sadly asks. Heidi swiftly turns and says angrily "This was supposed to be fun, but it seems like I can't do it the way that makes it easier for me! Then if so, perhaps I should leave the ice harvesting profession to the professionals!"
Heidi turns and starts walking off the ice past the sleigh. Sven moans worriedly and nudges Heidi in the back with his nose. Heidi turns around and pets Sven's head "It's okay Sven, I can get back alone." she smiles then turns and walks into the forest as Joseff, Olaf and Sven watch her figure fade away in the white mist of the trees. Heidi used her magic to enhance her speed and gets back to the kingdom in less than seven minutes. Heidi darts down the mountain and dogged past the trees like they weren't there. She made it to the entrance into town and walked the rest of the way to the castle gates. When she enters the castle, Heidi walks into the sitting room and lays on the sofa, kicks off her boots, and throws her arm over her face covering her eyes as she groans in annoyance.
Kristoff later walks past the room and notices Heidi inside and goes in to talk to her. "Heidi? I thought you were out harvesting ice with Joseff and Olaf." Heidi doesn't say anything right away before she takes a deep breath, exhales, then says. "I was! But I decided to leave." Kristoff stands by the sofa in silence and concern. He takes a step forward and asks, "Do you want to talk about it?" Heidi flops her arm off her face as it dangles off the side of the sofa and turns her head to face her father. She sits up and scoots to the side to give room for her father to sit.
Heidi puts both her hands on her face and starts rubbing her eyes in her palms before she speaks "I tried to get an ice block out of the water, but it kept slipping, so I decided to use my magic to get it out of the water. But Joseff said I wasn't doing it right, that I was cheating and I was like "It doesn't matter how you get the ice out of the water as long as you can get it out of the water!" so, I decided to leave."
Kristoff rubs Heidi's back and says "It's okay, not everyone gets it right on the first try." Heidi's hand then slaps her legs as she groans and slums back on the sofa "I feel like I have nothing to offer this kingdom that is worth me doing." Kristoff looks confused by Heidi's statement. Heidi then stands up, turns to face her father, and says with a frustrated tone "I can be more than what I am now, Dad! I want to do something with my life." Heidi swings her right arm towards the window "I want to give something back to this world!" Kristoff stands up and walks in front of his daughter and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"You are doing something Heidi." Kristoff said calmy. Heidi pushes her father's hand off and takes a step back "No I'm not! All I do here is wait around inside this castle for something to happen!" Heidi walks over to the window and sees the town plaza bustling with activity "I want to serve Arendelle in ways I can be of use, I want to do something good with my magic, and help others, like Elsa has." Heidi puts a hand on the window and closes her eyes as her father only stares in silence.
She then turns her head halfway and looks at her father with an angry face "Did you plan for Joseff to take me ice harvesting to get me to change my mind?" Kristoff hesitated for a moment before saying "No, of course not, I just thought to give you a chance to try it. And maybe you would want to continue in the profession, to give you something to do with your time." Kristoff chuckles after he finished talking. Heidi gives her father a dead stare knowing it was a lie. She walks past her father and opens the door to leave, but she stands in the doorway for a moment and pauses. She turns her head halfway to face her father and says in a serious and angry tone "Just don't." She closes the door behind her and leaves her father alone in the room.
Heidi needs to think about her life some and think about what she's going to do about it. So she marches down the stairs and down to the lower levels of the castle to the training room. The training room is full of swords, lances, crossbows and old armor that hasn't been used in the last hundred years or so. Mattias had given Heidi a key to this room when he knew she could be trusted with one and was old enough to be in this room. He said she is free to use the room to train if he's not available. In turn, Heidi is not even suppose to be in this room after all since it was strictly for castle guards only.
Heidi would often come down to this room to blow off steam or just to get rid of built up energy that she needed to be rid of before she takes it out on something or someone else. Other times she would practice her sword skills and just for kicks, wrestle with a training dummy just out of boredom. But now she goes to this room to reflect and think.
Heidi went inside and walked over to one of the sack dummies that stood on a pole against the wall in the back. She stared at it for the longest time and her eyes grew a dark shadow under neath them, casted by the light from the window close to the ceiling. She clenched her hand into a fist, the sound of bones cracking when she did. She threw a punch directly in the center of the dummy punching a hole right through it and into the wall behind it. The punch sent waves of shock through out the room and cracks were made by the punch behind the wall as Heidi breathed hard and deep from frustration with her head held low.
There was a sheening glow in her eyes as they slowly looked up, then raised her head up to see half of her arm was inside the through the dummy and in the back wall. She was irritated and disappointed in herself as her breaths were heavy and slow, but her fist remained in the wall. Heidi pulled her hand out as dust covered her hand and forearm as she examined it deeply, not a single scratch or cut to be seen that showed she that she had punched into a wall. Heidi needed to calm herself before appearing in front of anyone again. "Deep breaths." she told herself. After a moment of breathing, she walked out of the room, to see two people she knows she can talk to who are across the hall.
Across from the armory is a small room where the castle guards have their breaks and where they come to rest as others switch out to take their shift for the evening. Heidi has often visited the guards in the break room and got to know many of them personally and learned of their lives and listened to their problems. Some of the guards have even asked her to convince her mother into giving them a raise on some occasions during the holiday seasons. The guards were her friends, not like Olaf or her brother, who she doesn't see much any ways. And she would often get to train with some of them in the training room to keep up with her skills when Mattias was to busy with his duties to the Queen.
Heidi knocked on the door to the guards brake room "Enter!" a voice came from behind the thick oak door. Heidi opened the door to see two of the castle's guards; Andor and Thorin drinking grog and playing cards. "Princess!" Thorin welcomed her when he saw her standing in the doorway. "Hey guys." she returned the welcome with a smile. "Here for training?" Andor assumed. "No, not this time." Heidi closed the door behind her "I just needed some advice." Thorin speaks up "Care to join? Were playing Bräus." he invites her to the card game the two were playing.
Heidi walks into the room and takes a seat at the bench table. "Ah yes, the oldest card game known to all of Europe." she said as Andor passes around a new set of cards around the table. "A game of 'who's calling bluff' and the price of shedding your cards." chuckled Andor as he placed the rest of card deck in the center of the table.
Heidi goes first and picks a card from her hands and places it in front of the her face down. "I came down here to ask you guys something." Heidi said looking at her cards. Thorin then choses a card to lay face down "What is it?" he asked. Heidi pulls a card from the stack "When you first applied to be in the royal guard, did you ever have trouble trying to prove you were worthy of doing the job?" Both Thorin and Andor looked at each other trying to think of an answer. Andor answered "I've never had to look into it like that, I was hire for the job and had to swore and oath to keep toward my duties." Heidi was looking for a more decisive answer than that, but supposes every answer would be different.
"Why makes you ask, your highness?" Heidi said laying down a card of five spades, "I'm having a bit of an identity issue." Both Andor and Thorin chuckled "You? An identity issue?" Thorin laughed. "Your the only Princess of Arendelle and daughter of the Queen. What other identity do you think you need?" Andor responded as he drank for his mug. Heidi looked up with her eyes showing she's frustrated with them making fun of her when she has legit reasons. Thorin sees the look the Princess is making as he fixes Andor's words. "Your highness, you have nothing to prove to her majesty or us. As your guards, our only advice to give you is not to change who you are." Thorin tried to give words of comfort.
Heidi looks at both Andor and Thorin and huffs "I used to think that my life would be more fulfilling than what I have now to go by." she said looking down at her cards. "But maybe I could change my life." she smiled as she takes a card from the stack. Both Andor and Thorin look toward their Princess with raised eyebrows. "I am the only Princess of this kingdom, but I am also second born with Joseff already ahead of me and is destined to inherit the throne." Heidi states. Already her words were starting to make to guards eyes turn toward each other uneasy. "Therefore, my reason to exist is not defined by the line of succession, but by the means of being only second to anything."
The guards didn't understand where this conversation was going and they were getting creeped out by the grin Heidi was making through out her little speech. "You know what? You two are absolutely right!" Heidi exclaimed. "About what?" Thorin asked. "About me not having to prove myself to anyone but myself! I don't need anyone's permission to do anything since I'm not the one the people will look up to!" Heidi lied down a King, a Queen, and an Ace. She had won. "Thanks for the advice you two." Heidi rose from her seat and walked to the door and left the two guards confused and stunned by both her victory in the card game and what just happened in this conversation.
Later that night, the whole family sat down for dinner. Anna was reading her last few papers and then sat them down for dinner. Heidi was playing with her food more than she was eating it, Anna then looked up from her plate and asked "How was the ice harvesting trip?"Joseff quickly answered, "It was great." Anna replied happily "Wonderful! How about you Heidi?" without looking up from her plate, she responded, "I'm not really into it." Anna looked at her with concern and asked, "Why? Did something happen?" Heidi stopped playing with her food as her eyes looked up and said "I'm not good at it, that's all." giving little detail as possible not to continue this topic any further.
Anna, trying to encourage her, said "Give it another chance, I'm sure with practice you'll be good at it." Heidi then slumps back in her chair and drops her fork on her plate resulting in a loud *CLANG*, then Heidi goes off. "I don't want to harvest ice or have anything to do with it! Am I the only one that feels like ice harvesting is pointless right now?!" Everyone remains silent and scared to say anything as they all look at Heidi. "I mean, it's the middle of winter and there is ice and snow everywhere! Who would want to buy ice in the middle of winter when anyone can just go outside and get it for free?! It's free ice for crying out loud!"
Everyone remains silent as they all look at one another around the table not sure what to say or they were just afraid to. Heidi returns to playing with her food, then the grandfather clock against the wall chimes at eight o'clock. Heidi gets excited and jumps out of her chair "I'll be back later!" She quickly runs to the doors to leave the dining room before anyone could say a word. "Whoa, where are you going?!" Anna is somewhat ecstatic by the sudden change of mood. Heidi says happily as she opens up the door to the dining room "It's Friday!" Anna doesn't know what's going on "Wait a moment!" Heidi was already out the doors "Later!" and the door closed behind her. Kristoff was equally confused and asked "What was that about?" Anna didn't answer as she continued to stare at the closed doors with a worried face with a sense of secrecy.
What they didn't know was that Heidi was going to meet Mattias for her usual training session. She has been training in secret for eleven years now! Mattias had talked to Anna and Kristoff about training Heidi years ago when she was only a month away from turning six and both were extremely uneasy and rejected the idea entirely. Though that didn't stop Heidi from getting what she wanted despite her parent's knowledge and against their demands.
So Heidi and her child intelligence convinced Mattias to train her anyways. And so, the two made it a routine to train by the old oak tree in the fields at night where no one could see them. Heidi up from bed and sneak with her out of the castle with Mattias when they were sure everyone was asleep. They had to be sure they didn't get caught by any patrolling guard and sneak out through the secret exits around the castle. The exit tunnel would bring them just outside of the city perimeter, and the two have made their little meeting spot in the field by the oak tree.
It has been their little secret since that time and now Heidi is old enough and stealthy enough to sneak out of the castle by herself. And not too far off in the future, Mattias said he will test her skills to know if she will finally be ready to go on her first assigned mission with him and a few senior officers that will evaluate her. That will be a turning point in Heidi's life to give her a purpose and true meaning in her life.
And she intends to take it.
AUTHORS NOTES FOR READER
-Images used does NOT belong to me. Sourced from Google images:
https://cdn.wallpapersafari.com/48/34/iuya9F.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Frozen_lake_Ulriken_Bergen_Norway.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/2d/56/e32d56189fd2b8a62b694670a2766d5 4.png
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9e/d4/a5/9ed4a549a5d6a8980941f2549913b1d2.jpg