IDUNA
"He's such a drama queen!" Arianna laughed, falling back onto the floor as the sound of Agnarr's footsteps retreated down the hall.
I nodded as I laughed and brushed my fringe behind my ears.
"Goodness." Arianna said, abruptly changing tone and sitting up straight again, loosening her grip on the pillow, "I wonder what we're gonna do now that Nuru is gone."
"Huh." I tickled my chin in thought, "That's a good question. I guess I hadn't thought about that." a strange feeling overcame me and I wrapped my arms around my knees. It was a numb feeling. We'd grown so close after the last few months that it really didn't feel right waking up to a Nuru-free Arendelle. Arianna looked pretty miserable too, so I somehow decided to lighten the mood, "Did you feel this way when Fred left?"
She looked up at me, a pink tinge staining her cheeks. For a moment she couldn't find something to say, which was unusual for her, until she opened her mouth and said, "That's different."
"Ah." I tapped my nose and screwed up my face teasingly, "Of course."
"What are you implying, Iduna?"
I widened my eyes innocently, "What? So you mean to tell me you don't have a chest full of letters from a certain someone?"
Arianna leaned back and shut her eyes arily, "Absolutely not."
"So if I went up there right now, I wouldn't find that chest?"
"Of course not. Because it isn't there."
"I should go look then." I said playfully, jumping to my feet, "I obviously won't find anything, because there isn't anything to find."
Arianna nibbled at her lip for a moment before sighing in resignation and saying, "Fine. I have been writing letters to Fred. A lot of them. What's so wrong with that?"
I felt a pinch of triumph and a jolt of happiness, and when I returned to the floor beside her, I was beaming like an idiot, "Nothing's wrong. It's just so romantic!" I batted me eyelashes and clasped my hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arianna's amused smile turn sly.
"Oh." she said, "You mean like a boy taking a girl onto a balcony with a breathtaking view, giving her his blazer because she's cold, and then taking her to the roof with an even more romantic view?"
I fell silent and stared at her incredulously.
"Or like a boy romantically taking a girl to his families super secret garden because he knows she'll adore it and then teaching her something new in a romantic way while she teaches him something new?" she smirked at my expression once she'd finished.
It took me a few moments to recover, and when I did the first thing I said was, "How did you know?"
She shrugged and picked up one of the chess pieces to fiddle with, "A little bird told me."
I frowned slightly and she gave in.
"OK, alright. Agnarr didn't want to tell me everything, but I may or may not have coaxed the details out of him because I really really wanted to know!" she grinned at me.
"Well." I leaned forwards, "I may have got Lanky to tell me things too."
Arianna pouted, which was not the reaction I'd been expecting. "You have pet names for each other?"
This took me by surprise, but I recovered pretty easily and smoothly said, while pretending to be more interested in my nails, "Why yes we do. He calls me Freckles," I looked at her and lowered my eyelids dramatically, "because they're my most endearing feature."
"Oih!" she cried, slapping her palms against her legs, "And what does he call me? Plain old 'Anna. Or occasionally Ari. But everyone calls me that." she pouted again, before glancing my way and asking, "Did you make nicknames for all of us?"
I laughed, "We had a lot of time on our hands. Yes, you all have nicknames."
"What am I?" she was excited now.
"Lady." I answered, "Because you're such a 'Lady'. Lanky decided upon it."
A glassy look overcame her eyes and her head fell back against the sofa. I guessed she liked it.
"I bet if you'd been given half the chance, you'd have made Fred's nickname Tall-Dark-and-Handsome, huh?" I joked.
Arianna's head turned to me, "Well, perhaps. Though really he only has the tall and dark part going for him." then she looked up at the ceiling again and put her hands behind her head, "But Nuru-Baako on the other hand!"
I smothered my laugh in order to drape the back of my hand across my forehead with dramatic flare, "Oh, he's to die for!"
We broke down into hysterics again until we heard someone enter the room and the words, "Who's to die for?"
I looked up to see Agnarr walking back into the room, his hands determinedly fiddling with the neck-tie he was trying to fold into place. That is, until he gave up and flung the tie over his shoulder.
"No one." Arianna lied, "Don't worry brother dearest. You don't have any competition."
I gave her a sideways and brief frown, before turning my attention back to the King.
"Well then," he was saying, looking down at the watch I'd given him for Christmas, "I suppose it's time for breakfast now. Which reminds me -"
Arianna and I jumped to our feet and rushed past him before he could go any further than that.
We could hear him grumbling and reluctantly dropping the subject, and despite ourselves, we laughed triumphantly.
By now I'd gotten used to the Castle and all its grandeur; I knew exactly where everything was and skidded to a stop just outside the Great Hall way before either Arianna or Agnarr. It was satisfying, I can't lie.
"Hurry up slowpokes." I teased, "Anyone would think you'd been raised in a barn."
Agnarr shook his head with a grin and Arianna playfully slapped my shoulder before effortlessly throwing open the large doors and waltzing inside like the Lady that she was.
After the serving of breakfast (which was basically a feast all unto itself), we fell silent. It was what usually happened at mealtimes as we were all enjoying the food so much; the cooks here were absolutely incredible!
But soon we were scraping the last scraps off our plates and conversation came naturally.
"What do you girls think we should do now?" Agnarr asked, filling his glass with more water.
Arianna shrugged, scooping the last of her egg onto her fork, "I'm not sure what there even is to do. It seems so empty here without Nuru."
"I guess we could go and find those trolls for him." I suggested, "After all, we did promise him yesterday. I think it would be fun. Though where to begin?" I lifted my eyes to the ceiling in thought.
"That sounds like a good idea." the Royals chorused.
Then a fist slammed against the table and I looked towards Agnarr.
"As for where to find them, I can sneak a map from the boardroom. Then we can see where they definitely won't be and go from there."
"Sounds like a plan." Arianna stated, getting to her feet, "While you're doing that, Iduna and I will start thinking about what we'd have to take with us."
I stood too, and followed Arianna back to the living room, waving a small goodbye to Agnarr as I left the Great Hall.
When we arrived, Arianna got straight to business and began acting like this was some kind of important mission rather than a simple and fun adventure.
I humoured her though and by the time Agnarr snuck into the living room with a few rolled up pieces of parchment tucked under his arm, we had a long list inked out that not only consisted of essentials we'd need to pack.
Agnarr peered over our shoulders to see what we were writing. Well, what Arianna was writing anyway. She'd been really enthusiastic about this idea and even had her tongue sticking out - a gesture she only ever used when concentrating extremely hard on something.
"Blimey." he said, "That's a long list." then he dropped his pieces of parchment in front of us, "Do you think these'll do?"
Arianna didn't even look up, but I took one of the maps in my hands and unravelled it. It wasn't very big and I found myself thinking it would be perfect to have in one of our travelling bags.
I must have been spending too much time with Arianna; her tendency to over-think things was rubbing off on me.
"Seems perfect." I said, "You did a good job." I grinned at him, restraining from playfully tweaking his nose like I would have done with my sister when she did a good job in something.
"Well I'm glad." he said, sitting down behind his sister who was still bent double and hadn't even batted an eyelid at her brother's arrival. "Wouldn't want to disappoint my favourite girls."
"Favourite?" I smirked, though my heart had skipped a beat.
He leant forwards, "Well yes ..."
"Gosh." Arianna finally said, sitting up and spinning around to face us, "Get a room."
I wasn't sure whether she was joking or genuine, but I flushed and ducked my head, not wanting to find out.
Agnarr scratched the back of his head and leaned over her shoulder again, "OK. Well. What have you two been up to then?"
Arianna thrust the list in his face and turned completely to face him, "Just this. We've got everything sorted, now we just need someplace to look."
"And to actually gather these things." I reminded her, "You're getting ahead of yourself Lady."
She smiled sheepishly, "I suppose I am."
Agnarr then grabbed one of the longer and thicker rolls of parchment and stretched it out over the floor between us. It was a much larger map and showed the whole of Arendelle - including nearby villages that didn't necessarily fall under the King's rule.
He then took the ink and quill from Arianna and after dipping the nib in the ink, poised it above the map. "So we know that the trolls can't be here or here," he said, making two crosses on the map, "because we've been there on trips with our mother and father."
Arianna took the quill and made another cross, "Or here because the Guards have been there on multiple occasions and never sighted anything."
I knew I'd be no help in this because I didn't really know Arendelle, so while they continued to debate locations, I reached for the book about magical creatures and plants and flipped through it until I found the pages on Rock Trolls, wondering if I'd be able to find any clues from what was written about them.
Unfortunately, none of us had much luck. The siblings managed to limit locations to only several, but couldn't determine one specifically, and the book offered no information on exactly where they could be; it just included some cryptic pictures and the fact they were supposed to live in Arendelle somewhere.
Supposed.
We spent the rest of this first day creating a plan of action - deciding which point on the map we'd visit first - and gathering the essentials on our list - which included matches, spare clothes, a small map with the areas we would be searching marked in ink, food, water, and so on.
By the time the two bid me farewell that evening, we were all buzzing with excitement, wondering what the next week or so would bring.
Unfortunately, this novelty wore off a few days in.
We hadn't taken into account Agnarr's busy schedule, so this was the first issue we ran into. We had to try and dodge Colden and the advisors most days, but often got caught and this slowed us down tremendously.
We also hadn't realised just how far the locations would be and after a lengthy discussion, decided on horses. So we had to saddle up the horses each day, which was surprisingly hard work. I'd never ridden the reindeer in the forest, but everyone made it look so easy that I'd never thought it could be a struggle. I had a new found respect for those who did ride them in any case.
And then there came our greatest downfall of all: disappointment. We'd been so sure we'd find these trolls that we didn't once consider what would happen if we didn't, and after a couple weeks, we hadn't found them anywhere.
"Well this has been fun." Agnarr was grumbling, kicking up some leaves in the forest we'd decided to cut through on our way back to Arendelle. "Simply fantastic. Now we can tell Nuru-Baako that we've found nothing." he spread his arms wide and yelled to the trees, "Nothing!"
"Oh shut up 'Narr." Arianna demanded, her head buried in the map like usual, "We must have just missed something."
"Of course we have." Agnarr said sarcastically, "That's why we can't find anything. It has nothing to do with the fact that they probably don't even exist."
"Well don't act all high and mighty. You were just as sure as I was that these trolls were real."
I rolled my eyes and started slowing down to create distance between them and myself. Just as Halima had always complained, these two really enjoyed bickering with each other and I was getting increasingly sick of it.
Simply blocking them out didn't work anymore as they always tried to involve me, asking me who was right or whatever. So instead I'd started keeping my distance so they couldn't then turn to me in quite the same way.
That's not to say I didn't try to ignore them. I often did and on this particular occasion I focused on my surroundings rather than their constant arguing.
The sound of horse hooves on the earthy path was quite pleasant, as was the occasional chirping of a bird. It was in no way a very magical wood, but this was Arendelle. The only magical place I'd found was the Castle Gardens.
The trees were quite boring I found myself thinking; nothing at all in comparison to the trees of the Forest, which had white and brown bark and leaves of different shades of green. Or a lack of leaves, but even then I just found them hauntingly pretty.
That memory had only just crossed my mind when all of a sudden I almost tripped over something.
Expecting it to be some kind of tree root jutting out of the ground, I didn't think anything of it at first; until my foot got caught in this something again and I looked down. Turns out the 'root' was actually Cricket, and he was watching me, as if expecting something.
I scooped him into my arms and tickled his nose. He loved it when I did that.
"Sorry Cricket." I said to him, "But we still haven't found anything." then I pointed to Arianna and Agnarr, "That's why they're arguing. But I suppose when they've been at it so many times, you kind of loose track after a while. They're probably fighting over who likes Frederic more by now."
Cricket gave a small bark.
"Well, Arianna seems to have a thing for him. But Agnarr's been his best friend since they were little." I pondered for a moment, "So I have no clue who likes him better."
Cricket barked again.
"Mind your language or you'll be sleeping outside tonight." that's when something struck me and I slowly lifted my eyes to the sky.
It was getting really dark and there were still no signs that we'd be leaving this forest soon.
"Or maybe we'll all be sleeping outside." I raised my voice then and hurried forwards so the others could hear me, "Hey guys. It's getting late. How far until we reach Arendelle?"
They both stopped their heated conversation and stared first at me, then each other and then the map.
"You've gone and gotten us lost 'Anna!" Agnarr fumed, his eyes flashing and his hair going wild.
Despite the fact that he was kind of scaring me at this point (he had a habit of getting scarily angry), I laid a hand on his arm and said in the most soothing voice I could muster, "Don't worry Agnarr. We'll be fine. We'll make it out of this forest if it's the last thing we do. And this isn't Arianna's fault either, it's all of ours."
He stared at me and I stared back. I watched as his face visibly became calmer and I could feel his body relaxing beneath my hand. After a few minutes, he became completely still and I felt it was safe to continue.
"It'll be hard to tell where we are on the map, especially at this late hour, but if we keep moving, maybe we'll stumble across something familiar."
Agnarr gave a weak nod and we all set off again.
Stars were blinking from their perches in the sky by the time we found anything remotely interesting: these craters with warm smoke erupting from them.
"Recognise these?" I asked, crossing to one and raising my shivering fingers to the heat.
Agnarr and Arianna joined me, but shook their heads.
"Unfortunately no." Arianna sighed, "I never even knew these types of things existed."
"Neither did -" but Agnarr never got to finish his sentence as the ground beneath our feet suddenly rumbled.
My eyes frantically flew across the landscape beyond the Royal siblings, trying to locate a potential source of that sensation. "Did you two feel that?" I asked.
"Yes I did." Agnarr furrowed his brow and stepped away from us, towards what looked like a narrow pathway.
"Can you see anything?" Arianna asked, her voice shaking.
He shook his head, and beckoned us to follow him, which we did. Arianna placed one hand on his shoulder as we all crept along that pathway.
It seemed eery and I didn't like it in the slightest, but I was also curious and couldn't help but wonder what was causing the ground to tremble.
After a while of forcing ourselves forwards despite the fear, we made it to a clearing, and the sight before us was very strange. It was not at all what I had expected.
It was a very large clearing and had layers of rock making a sort of staircase around a flat piece of land.
But this wasn't even the most peculiar thing - the entire area was covered with perfectly round rocks. They looked extremely heavy and most were covered with fuzzy moss and even the occasional mushroom!
We stood and stared at them for ages, before I heard a sudden scream.
Almost jumping right out of my skin, I turned to see Arianna pointing dramatically at one of the rocks, lurching backwards and grasping at her irritated brother for protection.
"What is it Ari?" I asked her, but the question answered itself when the rock she was pointing at unexpectedly twitched.
"Ah!" I cried, leaping away too.
But Agnarr on the other hand, moved towards it!
Arianna tugged on the back of his blazer, pleading, "What are you doing! Are you mad?"
"Don't you see?" he turned to us, his eyes full of glee and a madly triumphant smile on his face, "We've found them! We've found the rock trolls!"