Anna groaned loudly for what seemed to be the thousandth time. "Ugh, where is this stupid well? It has been two days, and we have yet to find a well!"
Elsa closed her eyes and let a gust of air escape her nostrils. Even when they were children, Anna had never really been the patient type. "Pabbie told us to travel south, so if we keep on going, we should eventually find the Well of Wisdom."
Anna tossed her head back to look up at the cloudy skies, and huffed. "It better be some special well. I mean, why a well? This Mimir dude is supposed to be the Smartest Man Alive, right? So, why choose to be associated with a well for his wisdom? Why not something like, I don't know, a library? The Library of Wisdom. Yeah, those buildings seem like they could house a smart person. What's a well good for? Most people have running water from taps nowadays anyway. If you ask me, going to a well every day just to draw water doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do –"
"Shh, shh, Anna."
"Don't shush me while I'm talking, that's rude."
"No Anna, look! I think we're finally here."
When Anna looked in the direction that Elsa was pointing, which was towards the foot of a hill, all expectations of a grand well seemed to crash and fall before Anna. Instead, she found herself approaching the most tattered and worn-out well she'd ever seen in her life, and that was including pictures of wells she had seen in books. The well seemed oddly out of place. There were no houses nearby, no stables, no farms. Nothing. It was just a well in the middle of nowhere.
"That's –" said Anna, barely able to conceal her disappointment, "– the Well of Wisdom? Oh, we are so screwed."
"I don't understand," said Elsa, dismounting Fjora, "Mimir's home should be close by, but there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the area. Where could he be?"
"Maybe this isn't the well we're looking for?" asked Anna tentatively.
"Maybe. But this is the only well that we've encountered during this entire trip so far. And who knows if we will see another one again. I have a feeling that this is it. This is the Well of Wisdom. I'll go up to see if anyone lives on the other side of this hill."
"Why don't I go with you?" said Anna quickly. She was uncomfortable at the thought of being separated from her sister and being left alone. Experience has taught her that it could only end so well.
"Don't worry Anna, I won't go far. I'm only going to the top and back again. It'll only take a few minutes, okay?"
"Okay," said Anna reluctantly.
As soon as she watched her sister take off on Fjora, Anna turned her attention back to the well. She circled it, taking in every aspect of it. As she walked around the well for the third time, she suddenly noticed something odd.
'Hey,' Anna thought to herself, 'where's the bucket?'
The rod at the top of the well was wound with rope, but nothing else was attached to the other end of it. It was just dangling over the well, its frayed ends swinging gently in the wind. Anna walked closer to get a better look.
'Hmm, the rope must've snapped.'
She peered over the edge and looked down into the well. It went down a very long way, and at the very bottom, Anna could just barely make out the surface of the water below, mirroring the clear skies above. Except for the fact that it was pretty cloudy that day.
"What in the world?" said Anna out loud, looking down again into the well, and then back up at the sky, and then back down into the well again. Goosebumps started to crawl up her skin. Something about this well seemed strange to her. She was pulled out of her own thoughts by the sound of approaching horse hooves.
"There's nothing on the other side as well," said Elsa as she jumped off Fjora and gave her a loving pat on the nose. "Found anything interesting while I was gone?"
"Yeah! Check out this freaky well!" Anna pulled Elsa close to the well and pointed out the weird reflection at the bottom.
"Woah," said Elsa, "that is weird."
Out of nowhere, the words just came out from Anna's mouth. "I think – I think that we should climb down to look for Mimir."
"Climb down – Anna, what makes you think we should climb down? It's dangerous, and who knows if Mimir is even there?"
"Come on, Elsa, think about it. Why would there be a well out here in the middle of nowhere? It doesn't make any sense. Plus, that weird reflection in the water still gives me the creeps every time I think about it. I just – I just have a really strong feeling about this, and you'll have to trust me on it. You trust me, right?"
Elsa was silent for a moment. "I trust you. So, how are you planning on getting down to the bottom?"
Anna inspected the well again. "It's definitely too deep for us to jump down without breaking anything, and this rope over here looks too fragile to hold any of us, even if we were to go one at a time. I was thinking maybe I could use my powers to create some sort of makeshift staircase to go down safely?"
Elsa pursed her lips together, thinking about the idea Anna had just presented. "Okay, that could work. Let's do it."
Anna took a deep breath. "Alright, here goes nothing."
'I want to build a staircase.' She concentrated hard on this thought, put her arms out in front of her, and gave her wrists a gentle flick forward. Anna shut her eyes tightly, not daring to see if she had succeeded or not.
"Hey, you're really getting the hang of this," said Elsa, "But next time try thinking about making the stairs go down into the well instead."
"Huh? What are you talking about –" Anna opened her eyes and stopped talking at once. She smacked her forehead when she saw that although she had been successful in creating a beautiful set of stairs, they were leading upwards and away from the well, and not in the direction that they wanted to go.
"Darn it, you have to think about the direction as well!" said Anna to herself, as she vanished the stairs in front of them.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Anna, you are still pretty new to this. Let's just try again."
Anna smiled at Elsa's encouragement. Concentrating hard on where she wanted the stairs to lead to, she threw her hands out in front of her again and flicked her wrists.
"Yes! Got it on the second try!" She pumped both her fists into the air and gave her sister a triumphant look, which Elsa returned with a smile. "Nice work, Anna."
Carefully, Anna and Elsa made their way down the stairs, spiralling deeper into the well. Elsa, who was leading the way, stopped when they finally reached the bottom, with Anna right behind her. They were now standing just an inch above the surface of the water. It was oddly still, and no matter how hard they tried to peer into it, all they could see was still the reflection of a clear sky.
"What now?" asked Anna, leaning over her sister's shoulder to get a better look at the mysterious reflection.
"Hmm," said Elsa, "Maybe there's a hidden entrance. Try pressing against the walls and see if anything happens."
Luckily for them, the well was relatively narrow, and they could reach the walls surrounding them fairly easily. Not so lucky, however, was the fact that there appeared to be no secret entrance.
"Got anything?" asked Anna.
"Nothing," replied Elsa, "Looks like there's only one place left to go..."
The two looked down again into the water, its eeriness still looming over them.
"There's no way to tell for sure how deep it is," said Elsa, not taking her eyes off the water, "I'll go first."
"What? No –" Anna began to protest, but was quickly cut off by her sister.
"Anna, listen to me –"
"No, listen to me! I get that you're my elder sister and you want to protect me and all. But things are different now. You don't have your powers anymore, I do. Let me go first."
Elsa took one look at Anna, saw the fiery determination she had in her eyes, and sighed. There was no talking her sister out of this. She took a step back to allow Anna to get in front of her.
"You're right. But be careful, okay?"
Anna smiled at her. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
Anna stood over the water, her heart beating rapidly. She had no idea what was about to happen next. How deep was the water? Was there a dangerous creature in the water? What if the water was poisonous to the touch? What if she drowned?
No, she couldn't let these thoughts cloud her now. Right now, all she needed was answers on how to undo the curse. Answers she would only get from Mimir, who was probably somewhere at the bottom of the well. She had to do it. She took a deep breath, and jumped into the water.
Anna felt her body enter not a body of water, but a pool of nothingness. She opened her mouth to scream, but her throat had gone dry. As she free-fell through the darkness, she noticed that she was still perfectly dry, which was odd, considering the fact that she had just jumped into water. She heard her sister's cries trail after her.
"Anna!"
Her attention now turned to her sister. Was Elsa okay? But Anna couldn't do anything about it now. She was falling, probably to her death, and could do nothing about it. Just as the reality of it all started to hit her, she felt something soft and rubbery cushion her fall. She heard a soft thud as her sister landed beside her.
"Anna! Are you hurt?"
"Apart from the fact that I thought that I was going to fall to my death? Yeah, I'm fine. What just happened?"
Elsa looked up. "I think we just fell through a portal of some kind."
Anna looked up as well, and saw a shiny circle high up above them. Even now as she squinted her eyes, Anna could just barely make out the reflection of clear skies that they had seen in the mysterious water just moments earlier.
"Woah, a secret portal? Cool!" exclaimed Anna as she stood up to brush herself off. "What are we standing on? It's so dark that can't see – hang on." Anna raised one arm, opened her palm so that it was facing upwards, and produced a blueish glow that was often associated with her magic. "Much better."
Although the glow of her magic was dim, it was just enough so that the both of them could now see that they were standing on an intricate weave of long, green tentacles. Elsa bent down to examine them.
"I've never seen anything like this before, they look like roots of some kind."
"Whatever it is, they just saved our butts. Where do you think we are?" asked Anna as her attention now shifted to their foreign surroundings, which wasn't much of a sight. All around her was an inky black darkness, the only thing that they could see was the roots they were standing on.
"Anna look! It looks like the roots lead somewhere."
True enough, the dark green tentacles that they were standing on seemed to be crawling into a small tunnel. However, they could not tell where the roots lead to, because they were quickly swallowed up by the darkness ahead.
"Do you think we should follow them?" asked Anna apprehensively.
"We don't really have much of a choice, do we?"
Anna looked around again and bit her lower lip nervously. Elsa was right. They could either follow the roots to see where they went, or wander around aimlessly in the impenetrable darkness. The former seemed like a way better idea to her.
"I guess so."
"Come on, we've got to stick together," said Elsa as she reached out and grabbed Anna's free hand. Anna held on tightly, not wanting to part with her sister even for a second. It would be impossible to find each other again if they were to be separated here.
The sisters slowly made their way through the dark, stopping every now and then only to check if they had strayed away from the roots, which was now their only guide. As they were walking, Elsa couldn't help but notice that Anna seemed a little tensed up.
"Are you okay?"
"What? Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"Well you don't look fine to me. Something is bothering you. What is it?"
"I don't really want to talk about it..."
"Anna, after all those times that you've made me share things with you, I think you should be able to share stuff with me as well. Come on now, spit it out," said Elsa in that gentle tone, as though she were comforting a scared animal.
Anna sighed. "It's just that, being here, it sort of reminds me about that time when I was all alone in that cave. That was the time when Olaf had flurried away from me in my arms, the time I thought that I'd been separated from Kristoff for good, the time that –"
Anna paused for a moment to catch her breath, and continued, her voice now shaking. "– the time that I thought you had died trying to cross the Dark Sea, and that I would never get to see you again. All the people that I've ever loved were just taken away from me like that. I felt like I had no one else in my life. I felt – I felt truly hopeless in that cave."
Elsa felt her heart being torn out from her when she heard her little sister's voice crack at the end of her sentence. Anna had never told her in this much detail about what she had gone through in the cave that day.
"Anna, I –" Elsa felt a lump in her throat as tears began to blur her vision. How could she possibly have put her sister through all this? All Anna wanted to do that day was help her, yet she still found a way to push her away. "I'm so sorry I pushed you away that day. If I had known better –"
"Elsa."
She drew a sharp breath and looked at Anna, and was surprised to see her smiling, albeit with tears in her eyes.
"I'm not blaming you for anything. It had to happen, didn't it? I mean, if you hadn't sent me and Olaf away, you may not have made it to Ahtohallan and discovered the truth about the past, and that would mean that both the people of Arendelle and the Northuldra would have no future. So, even though what I went through that day was horrible, it did shape me to be a stronger person."
"But, but –" Elsa tried her best to get the words out from her mouth, but they never came. Anna pulled her sister in and embraced her tightly.
"I'm serious, Elsa, I'm not mad at you. Don't beat yourself up too much about it. I love you too much to be able to hold a grudge against you."
"I love you too," Elsa managed to choke out between her tears.
*
They continued to walk for what seemed like hours in the dark, occasionally interrupting the heavy silence with speculations about where they were.
"You know, we might be in another dimension," said Anna, "Pretty cool if you ask me."
Elsa pursed her lips together and furrowed her eyebrows, deep in thought. "No, that can't be. We probably just fell into a hidden set of tunnels which no one has ever found for a long time."
Anna opened her mouth wide in disbelief. "You had magical ice powers, but aren't open to the possibility that there may be another dimension?! Come on now, Elsa, you have to at least say that it's probable."
"Fine," Elsa chuckled, "it's possible."
Anna rolled her eyes and smiled. She never grew tired of these little banters she had with her sister.
"Hey," said Anna, who had now put on a serious expression, "can you see that light at the end too?"
Just up ahead of them, was an archway emitting different colours of light. In their excitement, the two sisters began to run towards the archway, and soon they found themselves shielding their eyes from the sudden increase in brightness as they ran through the archway and into a large opening.
As soon as their eyes adjusted, they saw that they had run into one of the most beautiful orchard-like areas they had ever laid their eyes upon. All around them were exotic plants which they found out to be the source of the colourful bioluminescence, plants which have probably never seen the light of day. Creatures like nothing of which they've seen before eyed their new visitors suspiciously on the surrounding rocky walls, which arched into a high ceiling above them,
Anna spun her head around, wanting to take in as much of this mysterious yet beautiful scenery as she could, when she heard her sister say, "Anna, look!"
Right at the centre of the orchard, stood an old, bent tree. Lengthy vines hung from its branches, emitting a greenish glow. It looked like just about any other tree, except for the fact that there was a head sticking out in the middle of the trunk.
Both Anna and Elsa gasped in unison.
"Mimir."