The Ice Duchess of the Federated Commonwealth - Frozen/Battletech

[Chris OFarrell]

Heh, I promised myself I'd get the next chapter of this out by the end of 2019.
Technically speaking I had it done an hour ago when it was stil 2019 in the last time zone and made the deadline, but got distracted by the 20-20 match on TV, so I'm still considering this a technical win :)

Happy New Year to all and I hope to get both my fanfics chugging along now!

Clearly I was inspired by Frozen II, which I found good if flawed in terms of the characters and the endgame - and definitly not as good or daring as Frozen I - but still a heartwarming effort and very enjoyable with some great moments (and incredible CGI, seriously, reading about the technology they build and improved upon to make this film its just staggering how advanced the hardware and software is to run this thing. And suffice to say that things like Elsa's backstory and the soruce of her powers are clearly incompatible with this canon (but that was always the case anyway) but I have no problems picking and choosing bits and pieces to enhance my universe with concepts and characters and ideas (and songs of course).

So, lets move things along shall we?

Chapter 11: Onwards and Upwards!

‘My first thought when I read the reports about everything that went down on Arendelle and everything she did … was I should start legal action for impersonation.

Second thought was to seriously think about offering her a slot in the Widows Cluster. Someone with the balls to pull off what she did with no prep, no plan; just a whole lot of purpose and seat of the pants driving? To the point of telling death itself to go take a hike?

Of course, then I found out she was just too damn adorable, no matter how much spunk she had.

So, I settled for signing one of my last collectors edition 3030s ‘No Guts, No Galaxy’ hoodies I had kicking around the warehouse and had it express shipped to her - with a note thanking her for once again showing the Inner Sphere that there was no force in known space more powerful than a redhead with attitude.’

When I finally met Elsa on Terra in 59, the first thing she did was complain that her sister had refused to take it off for a week.

Infinite cosmic power and determination to do her duty that one, no question at all.

Horrible fashion sense though.

-Extract from ‘Three hundred and Seventy Five Bar Fights’ - the autobiography of Col Natasha ‘Black Widow’ Kerensky (RET). Outreach Publishing Corp, 3062.

North Arendelle National Park, Arendelle
Crucis March
Federated Commonwealth
May 11 3053
T = +7.5 hours.

It was not entirely surprising that suddenly raising a castle of ice on the top of a mountain had second and third order consequences. Some of which would become clear much later, some of which had more … immediate effects.

Fuzed as it was into the planet by the sheer force of Snow Queens will, the Castle didn't settle into place so much as it had become part of the very mountain itself, with nary a shudder. Yet the sudden addition of that much mass did send ripples down and through the knife-like rock face as it adjusted to the new weight. Mostly granite, the knife-like face of the North Mountain handled the additional mass without any problems, but the shift nonetheless was enough to dislodge the fresh, heavy and unstable piles of snow and rocks. Setting them loose in sequence until a mild avalanche was pouring, under the cloud layer, down into the valley below.

Fortunately no people were in the immediate path of the tumbles of snow and debris. But there were other things in the forest besides people.

A pack of Arendellian Wolves, for example, leftovers of the many genetic engineering programs of the late Star League era conducted on the planet who had been introduced to deal with several native pests, were forced to flee their suddenly collapsing summer den into a completely unexpected winter storm. An enraged howl from the Alpha at this fact carried on the wind, reaching a horse quite some distance away plodding through the snow, causing it to come to a halt as it looked nervously around. But urged forward by its rider the colt obeyed; its eyes still glancing around with its nose sniffing the air in a blatantly anxious way.

To be fair, on any other day, Anna Jorgensson would have picked up on her horses skittishness at once. She had been trained by some of the best equestrians on Corona -who in turn were inarguably among the very best in the Inner Sphere given that worlds obsession over everything equine related. It had also been nothing but pure hard work on her part without the slightest hint of family favor that had earned her the right to ride the Royal Families highly exclusive animals. Combined with a love and affinity for animals, she in half a year was riding as if she had been for a decade, stunning and delighting her tutors in equal measure.

But on this night, her mind reeling with the impossible events as she kept calling out loudly for her sister, it was probably understandable that Anna had vaguely noticed - and dismissed - her mounts stubbornness as it simply being annoyed at being yanked it out of a comfortable warm stable to go trudging through the night snow. Thus, when a young pine was jolted by one of the final tremors from the remodeling on the North Mountain to suddenly spray a salvo of snow directly into the face of the horse and its rider …
In hindsight, it wasn’t that surprising that said horse reared up in a panic and sent a distracted Anna flying from its back with a very unlady-like profanity to crash into the snow. An instinctive twist in midair learned from many many clumsy tumbles through her years ensured Anna landed with her pride far more bruised than her body, tangled in her cloak. However she was stunned for a couple of seconds before she untangled herself from her cape … just in time to see her horse run back down the mountain at a gallop.

“No no nononono!” she objected as she struggled to her feet in chargrine, the horse pretending not to hear her as it hurried back the way it came away from this crazy part of the planet for the safety of home. “Come back!”

She didn’t do anything as stupid as trying to chase after it as it vanished out of sight without any sign it was going to slow down though, the realisation that she was stranded as she stood there starting to press in on her as much as the cold.

Perhaps she should have listened to Hans.

Charging off after her sister - while totally the right thing to do … might have been better served if she had taken a few minutes to change? And pack some things … like a radio?

Of course if she had done so, the odds were excellent that someone would have stopped her and shoved her onto the Throne, leaving the odds of her being able to catch her sister and bring her back next to zero, so…
Well, there was nothing for it but to keep moving … there! She could walk to the top of the hill and have a look around! Elsa couldn’t have gone that much further, could she?

Her mind made up, she started to step forward - and immediately sunk into the fresh snow up to her shins.

Huh. This might prove a little harder than she had hoped...

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New Avalon
Crucis March
Federated Commonwealth
May 12 3053
T = +8 hours.

Hanse Davion slowly looked up from the hardcopy message in his hands to regard the faces of Alex Mallory and Ardan Sortek.

The fact that his Intelligence Head and the Champion of the Federated Commonwealth were both openly wearing expressions that combined shades of worry, bewilderment, shock and confusion in the late afternoon sunlight of his office told him immediately that this wasn’t some kind of joke (at least not on their part) and this really was the Alpha-Utmost priority message that had been hand delivered from the ComStar HPG station by a DMI courier.

He had felt his heart stop reading the first sentences of the communication - from Arendelle. Well, not really as thanks to his wife and eldest daughter there was a NAIS medical team within ten seconds of his office and he was wearing a damn heart monitor 24/7 that would have had them bursting in should that have happened. Although be handed Flash Traffic from Arendelle of all places, at a level that actually stopped ComStars normal HPG operations across three different planets, including a Successor State capital, to receive it...

But, after getting past those first lines which swiftly assured him Victor was going to be fine and reading the rest of Galen's letter…

Well ... to say that it wasn’t what he was expecting would be something of a gross understatement.

The last time he had felt the universe turned upside down like this was when Jamie Wolf had revealed the truth behind their origins and those of the Clans on Outreach. And on that day, in public, he had kept his stunned shock well hidden behind an expression of intent interest.

In front his Spymaster and Best Friend in his personal office?

No, here and now he allowed himself the luxury of a complete, full and honest ‘what?’ look towards his best friend and spy chief, before carefully setting aside the letter and working to control his thoughts. He dearly wished Melissa could have been with him right now, but she had left three days ago with Arthur and Yvonne for the Jumpship command circuit that would take them to Tharkad with the court. He was supposed to follow her tomorrow and join her a week later, the first time he had been allowed to head off planet in a year … but he had a feeling his travel plans were going to be delayed.

“Alright” he finally said, glancing up at the two equally stunned men and gesturing them in annoyance to sit down and stop standing there. “Do we have the additional files Cox mentioned?”

“They should be here any moment Highness” Ardan said as he sat down. “ComStar reported there was some data corruption on the tail end of the transmission they had to work through, but salvaged the data and have a courier delivering it now”.

“Unless of course ROM were playing with the data” Alex grunted with a suspicious look as he in turn sat “and just needed the time to slice out things...”.

Hanse smiled slightly at his spymasters paranoia towards ComStar, which had hardly been dented by the extreme house cleaning done by Focht and Mori in the aftermath of Waterly’s Operation Scorpion. In truth, the ‘new’ ComStar was something he had more than a few of his own suspicions around too, but it was also undeniable to him that Foct - old Freddy Steiner himself of all people - was actually trying to reform ComStar into what it was supposed to be. What it publicly said it was.
Accordingly - and especially given the gutting of ROM in his … aggressive .. housecleaning, he couldn’t see any reason for them to play with something like this.

Pass all the data onto Terra as fast as they could send it and right upto the First Circuit and Primus, of course.
But not to play games.

This was just too insane to be a ComStar trick. Which oddly enough made him believe it.

“Let us assume, for now, that ComStar are not playing games and what we have is genuine - and we’ll be surely getting a Fax from the Barbarossa to confirm. Also putting aside Elsa for the moment, we have a major disaster unfolding on Arendelle. What can we do about it?”

There was a moment of silence that answered that question exactly as Hanse knew it would be answered.

Nothing.

“Arendelle has a population of two and a half billion” Ardan spoke up after a few seconds. “Evacuating a population that large, even if we had every jumpship in the Inner Sphere to hand …” he shook his head, “Even the Star League would have been incredibly hard pressed to move that many people quickly”.

“Right, so we’ll need to focus on disaster relief and mitigation” Hanse nodded, his mind going over numbers and glancing at the charts on the wall, wincing slightly as he saw the jumpship movements showing most of the AFFC fleet was massing quietly in Tamar, Skye and even deep in the Jade Falcon OZ in preparation for Operation Keyhole with few strategic reserves to play with. “Arendelle is a well developed world, they can survive an unexpected winter storm for a while. But even if the storm dissipated by itself, we can expect crop failures, infrastructure damage and problems in temperate areas that normally don’t see snow like this. At the very least they’ll have an economic downturn and we’ll need to look at disaster funding. I’ll bring in Admiral York to start figuring out Jumpship logistics for strategic supply shipment - and to look into conscripting civilian ships for relief supplies if we need them.”

The two men opposite winced slightly at that, but made no noise of protests. Even with the steady uptick in Jumpship production thanks to the last couple of decades after the Helm Core and ComStars recent major boost by opening up the Titan Yards for civilian construction, the Inner Sphere just didn’t have anything like enough Jumpships to go around. Civilian owned jumpships were generally booked months in advance, or, ran a preset cycle as part of a hub-and-spoke network to maximise efficiency. Disrupting it on a major level, even for a short time, could cause an economic headache and eventually an economic crisis across the entire FedCom...


“Right, so back to the Mammoth in the corner; Ardan, you’ve met her. Elsa I mean. Your thoughts on this?”

“Well, in context, her hiding this … power” Ardan seemed determined not to use the ‘M’ word Hanse noted in some amusement, “it makes some sense for how reserved she was in our meetings. Always holding herself under such tight control. I thought she was just nervous … and now that I think about it, she always wore gloves. Not to mention the seemingly excessive isolation she lived in … ”

“Her isolation also makes sense if she thought the public reaction to her powers being exposed would be highly negative - or might attract the wrong interest” Alex cut in as Ardan’s voice trailed off thoughtfully. “It’s not like we’re making a habit of burning witches in the 31st century, but I know a lot of people who would be very interested in these kinds of abilities and might have wanted to keep them quiet if they knew.”

And you’re one of them Hanse didn’t say. After all, the man was just doing his job. Ardan however shot Mallory a look that Hanse was very familiar with.

“More likely she feared her powers” Ardan countered sharply. “Powers no-one understood or could help her with? Consider it Alex; a young girl then a young woman. All alone in the universe with abilities no-one else can understand or qualify. Living in confusion of herself, of her very identity as a human being?” Ardan shook his head sharply once. “Try to have a thought for how utterly terrifying it must have been to grow up with these abilities, keeping them a secret all your life? Then she loses her parents with no other support structure to replace them, leaving her alone with enormous responsibilities on her shoulders to struggle though and perhaps the greatest secret in human history?” He shook his head a second time, the look on his face clearly not understanding how Elsa had been able to keep her chin up, as it was. “God knows how she could have lived with that kind of fear in her life and been as normal as she seemed to me…”

“Fear. That’s really what this comes down to isn’t it? What it always keeps coming back to, no matter how far we rise?” Hanse said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair and placing the letter on the table, feeling his age in a way he hadn’t before as he glanced down at the letter where Cox had (several times he noted) indeed emphasised almost emphatically that Elsa was not a monster or witch; just a terrified young woman in an entirely hobbile confluence of circumstances.

Fear of Elsa or fear for Elsa, who knows what had driven her parents? But it left a glaring question that he didn’t like the answer to.

Why hadn’t they come to him?

Only possible answer; they didn’t trust him.

Hanse honestly couldn’t help but feel … hurt … even though he knew he really didn’t have any right to. But hurt none the less that one of his more loyal Duchesses and Melissas very good friends wouldn’t feel that they could trust him with this kind of secret and that he would do anything he oculd to help.

But then, how the hell could be possibly judge them for their choices, in such a situation unprecedented in human history?

If Katherine or Victor had been born with unprecedented magical powers like this, would he broadcast that fact to the Inner Sphere? Or be terrified out of his mind by thoughts of the danger they could be to herself, the rest of their family and what fear might be torn open in the population of the Federated Commonwealth from the revelation? To say nothing of the fear in their enemies?

But then fear was an old and familiar foe of his.
House Davion did not give into fear, whatever form it took.
They faced it. Head on. Often too head on, but head on nonetheless.

Neither did they turn their backs on their vassals when they needed their help and Elsa was Victors - and technically his - direct subordinate. Loyalty, was always a two way street and despite the complete insanity of this letter, his next course of action was surprisingly clear to him as he sat up, determined in his next course of action.

“Alright then” he said determinedly, sitting up and causing Ardan and Alex to stiffen slightly as they prepared to receive his orders. “We have a terrified Duchess with magical powers running around Arendelle somewhere. Cox is competent, well backed up and clearly has his head on straight. He’ll have to deal with it … but I want to send a team down Victors command circuit from here to provide whatever support that might have even a remote chance of helping - and I want you” he said, pointing at Ardan, “to go with them. You’re frankly the only one I’d trust with this.”

“What are my orders?” Ardan asked with a tilt of his head.

“If the situation has already been resolved, reinforce to Elsa and Anna they retain the complete support of both myself and Melissa. Wave the flag and assess the situation if disaster relief is needed and report back when you can. Find out what is really going on with Elsa and emphasise we want to help her, not hurt her.”

“And if the situation has not been resolved?” Ardan asked with a seriousness that had been absent from him until this moment.

Hanse looked at him, unflinchingly, not needing to point out that there were quite possibly billions of lives hanging in the balance.

“Just do what you always do Ardan. The next right thing.”

[Chris OFarrell]

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“Snow! It had to be snow” Anna complained to the world loudly as she continued to struggle up the hill, almost losing her right shoe -again!- before she managed to keep it on with a twist of her foot, grunting as she also fought to keep her long dress up and out of the snow as she clambered up the last steps to the crest. She was in some disbelief mixed at how deep the snow had gotten in such a short space of time - and some amount of awe at Elsa’s power.
Also, trying not to think about how cold she was getting as she wondered how long until the sun came up, staggering finally to the top of the hill and trying to think warm thoughts. “She couldn't have had tropical magic that covered the f-fjords in white sand and warm...”

Her voice trailed off as she saw it.

In front of her was a tree covered valley looking charmingly picturesque ... but cutting straight up into the night sky through the still breeze was-

“Fire!!!!” she didn’t quite squee as she danced, seeing the long thin column of smoke rising not that far ahead through the forest from some kind of structure. Just down and-

Then the snowbank she was dancing on and in, collapsed.

“Woah!” she screeched as the ground gave way and with that she was tumbling down the slope, utterly out of control in the dark, desperately trying to stop as she slid down the smooth surface, finding no purchase with her numb hands as she somehow managed to avoid smacking into a tree and-

SPLASH!

She came to a spectacular stop from the ten or fifteen meter drop as she landed in a small creek of some kind.

She took a second to take a breath… then she jumped to her feet as she realized that flowing cold feeling washing over her was-

“COLD! Cold cold cold cold cold!” she gasped aloud as she jumped to her feet, water dripping from her that instantly started to feel VERY cold as the increasing wind caught her soaked clothes and tore right into her, her teeth now chattering as she realized she had lost the surprisingly warm cape that had been keeping the wind off her in the fall letting the wind howl into her.

She staggered forward and almost fell as she realized her dress lower half was soaked - and oddly freezing rapidly into an awkward sort of shape but pressed on as quickly as she could as the wind picked up and sleet started to fly in with it, the warm light pulling her forward as she reached the steps to the large warm building, awkwardly twist stepping her way up as her dress seemed to solidify as she found what appeared to be a sign and lightly pushed it to let the snow fall off…

“Wandering … Oakens … Trading post” she gasped happily before a smaller sign she had missed under it dropped its snow to reveal... “oh, and Sauna!”

That sounded perfect. Sort of sideways walking to the heavy wooden door, she reached down and twisted the handle…

Success! It was open!

Blessed, blessed warm air flowed out and she pushed the door open with a grunt, the wind trying to keep it closed as she squeezed around it and inside-
It slammed closed behind her and she smiled as she sort of walked forward, her exposed skin rejoicing in the warmth as she looked around. Seeing that indeed it did appear to be a trading post! With supplies everywhere she looked-

“Yoo hoo!” a cheerful voice called and she turned to see a cheerful man waving at her from a counter out to the side and she waved back happily. “Big summer blowout! Half off swimming suits, clogs - oh and a sun balm of my own invention!”

The frozen wind howling outside underlined the insanity of carrying on the big-summer blowout … near 4AM according to the charming clock on the wall. The sun would be coming up soon - had he stayed up all night, just in case some lost travelers like her would show up? Or … was he getting up early? She was getting a little turned around here.

But he was just so … happy!

“Oh, uh, great! For now, how about boots - winter boots - and dresses?” she suggested with a hopeful smile back.

“Ah, that would be in our winter department!” he cheerfully pointed her … to a tiny little corner of the store.
Understandable she supposed, given that it had been summer this morning that he wouldn’t exactly have much on hand … but it seemed fortune was with her as she quickly looked through the limited range. The only outfit that would fit her was a beautiful dress; a Bunad.
The traditional Norweagen clothes that immigrants from Terra had brought all those centuries ago came and went out of fashion in the cities from decade to decade. But among the more traditional Sami tribes that lived in the Northern part of this continent that tried hard to keep their ancient traditions alive, like the Northuldrans, they were very popular.

And she had to admit, the colours suited her!

“So, uh, I was just wondering” she asked as she greedily gathered the clothes and walked back to the counter, wanting to get out of her freezing, wet dress yesterday, “hasssss another young woman - oh, the Duchess perhaps - passed here?”

The wonderfully happy man just shrugged, clearly unphased by her awkward and unusually specific question she was trying not to cringe at.

“Only one crazy enough to be outside in this storm is you my dear!” he noted - a split second before the door suddenly opened with a howl of the wind and Anna spun around, hoping against hope-

No. It was a … man? She thought so, it was hard to tell under the clothes covered in white frost and snow with only his eyes showing through the wraps around his face.

“You and this fellow” the proprietor corrected himself from behind her. “Yoo hoo! Big summer blowout!”

She’d give him this, the man was … persistent.

The newcomer didn’t answer as he approached the counter … and her. And she sort of shuffled back into the counter as the man heavily stepped closer and closer into her personal space and making her feel just a little uncomfortable as she whistled looking away awkwardly, trying not to make eye contact-

“Corates” he said.

“Huh?” she blinked, a little confused and he leaned in yet closer causing her to pull back -

“Carrots” he repeated slower, with emphasis and a tinge of annoyance - this time she could hear him clearly. “Behind you”.

She blinked, glanced down - yes she was in the way, whoops!

“Oh! Right, ‘scuse me” she beamed a smile at him and slid out of the way, letting him reach in and pick out a bunch of carrots from the limited fresh food there, dumping it onto the counter - just barely missing landing on top of her dress, to her annoyance.

“A real howler in July, yes!” Oaken cheerfully observed as the man slowly made his way to where various tools and equipment were, studying the ropes and tools.
It’s May, not July Anna frowned for a second before shrugging as Oaken continued to chatter on. “I wonder wherever this could be coming from?”

“The storms centered right on top of the North Mountain” the newcomer said dismissively and those two words rang in Anna’s mind like a giant bell, drowing out the conversation between the two men as she thought furiously.
The North Mountain. What was it mother said about it … Elsa … Elsa … North Mountain?
She couldn’t quite remember, it had been years ago and she still felt that pang in her heart every time she thought of her mother… but it was enough.
If the storm was centered there, that had to be where Elsa was, right?

Well it was as good a place as any to run away to she supposed-

“Forty!?” the protest from the man next to her cut through her thoughts and she looked up to see him looming over the counter, sounding outraged. “No that's ten!” he gestured vaguely over at the shelf.

“Oh dear, that’s no good. See this is from our winter stock and supply and demand have a big problem?” Oaken said and Anna tilted her head slightly as she dredged up her memory on Arendelle consumer law. Trading posts, if she remembered correctly, had much looser restrictions on pricing and could in fact change their prices around on account of things like weather to account for supply limits-

“You want to talk about supply-and-demand problems? I sell ice as a sideline” the man snapped back, jerking his head out the window and Anna couldn’t help but glance, seeing an absolutely adorable sled with blocks of blue clear ice stacked up in the back, fascinating her. Ice harvesting in the traditional Norwegen way was indeed a small sideline that certain Sami tribes engaged in during summer and it was very popular for tourists to try their hand at, from around the planet. She didn’t really get it, but apparently a lot of other nobles on the planet had a huge thing for using only traditional and authentic harvested ice.
In her mind, it was nothing more than a way for them to flaunt their wealth in their summer parties. Rather than use a freezer and water like a normal person, they only accepted mountain ice. Harvested from lakes and delivered on the day for drinks on a hot summer's day...

With that said, she had to admit it was kinda hilarious.

“Ohhh that’s a rough business to be in right now” she giggled a little, smiling at him, “I mean that is … really …” she trailed off as it became clear from the look he was giving her, that this man wasn’t seeing the funny side of things.
She cleared her throat.
“That's unfortunate” she lamley finished up, wondering if she would ever manage to think before she spoke! Wasn’t driving Elsa into a panic attack and setting off an eternal winter enough of a screw up tonight-

“Still forty! But, I will throw in a visit to Oaken's sauna!” the proprietor offered, turning to wave to a door on the side of the large room she hadn’t noticed before. “Yoo hoo! Hi family!”

A number of children and adults inside waved back equally cheerfully and Anna couldn’t help but smile and wave back at them in turn, envying them their happy uneventful night…

“Ten’s all I’ve got, help me out?” the man didn’t quite beg and Anna felt a sudden sense of pity and opened her mouth to offer to pay … then closed it, thinking about what she had just thought about jumping in and wondering...

“Okay, ten will get you this” the proprietor - she wondered if he was Oaken, or if Oakan was a wandering person who came in and out, or if-

“Look you crook, I’m not asking for-”

There was a harsh scraping sound of wood on wood and Anna looked back to watch as, whoever the man was, he seemed to grow a meter in front of her eyes as he stood up.
She had seen the footage from the Clan War, of those monstrous Clan Elemental soldiers … and she suspected this man could have passed for one as he stood so high, his head seemed to move out of the rooms light.

“What … did you call me?” he asked, sounding not … ominous. Or threatening. Or angry.

He just sounded horribly hurt.

Thirty seconds later however after the proprietor had (with one hand) hiked Mr ‘Crook’ out the door in an astonishing show of strength, Anna made a mental note to not call him a crook.

“I am sorrys about this violence. I will add a quart of lutfisk ja, so we are having happy feelings? Just the clothes and booths?”
Anna swallowed heavily at the fish looking at her through the glass, fighting the bile moving up. She had always hated lutfish, hated the fact that it was one of Arendelle's celebrated foods meaning she saw it everywhere...

She was 100% convinced that the very best thing about living on Corona with her Uncle and Aunt - well other than Punzy - had to be the complete lack of lutfisk…

And as she dragged her eyes away from the poor poor fish staring at her in accusation, she saw the rope, pick and carrots waiting there.

“Actually … I’ll take all of this as well” she waved at the items. “Oh and you can keep the lutfisk”.

“Really? But I-”

“Keep. The lutfisk” she repeated, wondering how she could get so queasy just from saying the word...

“Well whatever you say dear” he shrugged. “Now that will be … three hundred!”.

Anna then realized a slight flaw with her plan. She wasn’t carrying any money. But-

“Do you, uh, have a scan-pad?” She guessed he would, she knew enough about this part of the world to know that a lot of nobles had their holidays in various holiday houses and estates scattered across hundreds of kilometers and they would go to places like this in the ‘winter’ season for supplies. Being connected to the electronic payment system would be critical … she hoped-

“Of course my dear!” the man beamed and he dove under his counter before bringing up a gleaming pad. Capable of taking a biometric thumbprint scan like a verigraph, it would then identify her and charge it back to her account - her working account - which she knew had at least a few million in it which she was pretty sure would cover this...

Then she froze in the very act of reaching for it.

Of course … if she put her palm on this, it wouldn’t just charge her account. If Galen and Victor and all those other people she knew would want to drag her back to the Castle were looking for her and had put the word out, putting her hand on this would set off a red flag and she’d probably have Jump Infantry dropping on top of her in minutes, eager to drag her back to sit on Elsa’s throne…

She couldn’t risk it. But she wasn’t carrying any money...

“My dear?” the proprietor held the pad towards her hand sort of hanging halfway in the air and she blinked.

“Uh … “ she thought rapidly, moving the hand back to run through her hair in furious thought-

And froze again, as her hand nudged the disk in her hair. The gift from her Uncle and Aunt that was precious to her beyond most things she owned … and yet she knew that they would understand - and it happened to be worth tens of thousands of pounds.

“So, uh, Oaken?” she queried, getting the happy nod from the smiling man and beaming her own back at him. “Rather than a scanpay, might I propose a trade?”

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“...of emergency, we repeat the news bulletin. To confirm the impossible news that has spread across the entire planet like this storm; the Duchess Elsa has what can only be described as some kind of magical powers over ice and snow. This is not a hoax or a joke - the footage is all over the vid and please, feel free to look out the window and see the incredible snow in the middle of summer! These incredible powers were revealed during an argument between the Duchess and her sister, striking no less a person than Victor Steiner-Davion himself, hero of the Federated Commonwealth!

There are a great deal of mixed messages coming out of the investment, but official statements are that the entire situation was a tragic accident and Victor himself is fine, but being held for observation overnight. In the aftermath, the Duchess was said to flee on foot across the Arendelle Fjord, by freezing it under foot! This in turn has set off a massive winter storm that is expanding rapidly, but we all pray passes quickly.

Please remain calm!

Galen Cox, commander of the 10th Lyran Guard escort force was placed in command of the situation by Prince Victor himself. He has designated the emergency state response to the Government and gave a speech which designated as his civilian liaison one Han-”

Kristoff killed the somewhat battered but still perfectly functional short wave radio and put it back into his pocket, shaking his head slowly, somewhat bewildered, but oddly indifferent. Sure, it’s not what he had expected to hear … but unlike most everyone on the planet - and Inner Sphere for that matter; he knew that there was much more to the universe than what you could see and hear.

With that said; not his problem!

Putting the radio in his pocket, he picked up his lute, equally battered but with fresh strings and smiled as he strummed a few chords, getting the mass of fur next to him shuffling closer and smiled as he sensed what he wanted to hear.

“Reindeers are better than people. Sven, don't you think that's trueeee?” he asked lightly.

“Yeah, people will beat you and curse you and cheat you. Every one of them's bad except you”.

“Oh, thanks buddy” he chuckled. “But people smell better than reindeers. Sven, don't you think that I'm riiiight?”

“That's once again true, for all except you!”

“You got me, let's call it a night” he laughed.

“Good night!”

“Don't let the frostbite bitttteee” and with a final strum, Kristoff let the song end with a smile on his face despite everything.

Things were not exactly going as planned right now, he supposed. What, with a massive winter storm in the middle of summer rather derailing his plans to make a quick buck selling harvested ice to those up themselves nobles on Royal Ridge.
Well, he was all but out of cash, with what money he still had (which wasn’t exactly a small amount as he honestly had always earned more than he spent) down in the guildhall he stayed in most of the time. And without the rope and pickaxe, he didn’t fancy his chances going on through the rest of the night.
So, he supposed he was stuck until the storm blew over.

On the other hand, he was stuck with Sven. His best friend. Only friend he needed. And they’d made it through far worse together. Not that Sven had been exactly happy about the lack of carrots...
That Oaken he snorted silently as he put his lute aside. Oh, the man wouldn’t go back on his long standing agreement to use the shed here as a shelter when he needed it, but in his long experience, rocks rolled downhill and when you were on the bottom like him, well, you learned to either roll with them or got crushed. There wasn’t much point in getting upset about people being people after all and looking out for themselves, so he’d follow Svens lead as he settled down next to him and-

“Nice duet!”

He jumped in surprise off the hay he had been lying on in alarm at the sudden voice next to him. His cap sent flying as he looked around, feeling Sven next to him equally startled and getting to his feet-

“Oh. It’s just you” he exhaled slowly as he laid his eyes on the intruder by the door, about to turn away dismissively before he did a double take.
It clearly was the young woman from Oakens … but she had changed clothes.
And her hairstyle for that matter.
She wasn’t wearing that dress that screamed ‘Barons oh so precious daughter’ anymore (that would have had her turn into an ice statue by tomorrow) but a surprisingly cute Sami-

Nope. NOPE, not going there Kristoff scolded himself, channeling his irritation.

“What’d you want?” he asked, hoping if he was as dismissive as possible she would go away. If she wanted to share the shed … well, there was a whole corner over there he supposed, so long as she didn’t try to actually talk to him.

Worryingly as she edged in from the door, he had a feeling that that was exactly what she was about to do…

He wasn’t disappointed as she stiffened slightly at his brusk question, before raising her chin and-

“I want you to take me up the North Mountain,” she said. Her voice, her face and her very bearing hilariously serious for such a young little girl lost in a snowstorm.

Okay, it was worse than talking to him. He called it alright, Barons daughter who never had anyone tell her no before and thought he was a taxi service … and wanted to go up the North Mountain?!

“I don’t take people places” he scoffed to her after processing the ludicrous idea, fishing his cap off the floor and popping it onto his head as he leaned back. In his experience if you just ignored people like this, they tended to get the hint sooner rather than later. Especially when they were clearly insane.

Sven of course didn’t sit back down, like the damn puppy he kept thinking he was he could feel him excitedly bouncing on his feet as he stared at the newcomer, but he ignored him-

“Let me rephrase that” the sweet voice came back-

THUMP

Kristoff had the wind knocked out of him as something heavy dropped onto his stomach and he bounced to sitting up with a gasp for air, his hat going flying again. That crazy girl had come within a very short distance of dropping a heavy bag onto his...

“Hey!” he yelled in no small amount of annoyance. He might have been manhandled by that crook Oaken, but he wasn’t going to take this damn party girl throwing him a sack with … the rope … and new pickaxe he really needed.

He blinked, then looked up in more than a bit of confusion.

“Take me up the North Mountain … please” she finished … and damn it to hell there was something … something about her expression and the way her voice softened that made his tongue freeze as he prepared to reflexively tell her to get lost. Those eyes he had thought were blue inside the trading post seeming to flicker almost green in the light of the lamp-

STOP. What the hell was he thinking? Seriously? Her eyes?!

Get it together Kristoff!

“Look, I know this sounds crazy, but this winter isn’t, well, natural” she continued. “And I know how to stop it if I can just get up to the North Mountain!”

That … for the first time, he paused and looked at her. Really looked at her.

Pabbie … Pabbie had been cryptic when he had left the valley three days ago. Even for him. Telling him that on this day, he would find himself in the right place at the right time to do the right thing. And that he would need to do the right thing.
When he had asked him what he was talking about, he had gotten (as he should have expected) nothing more than a smile and gestures to be on his way.
He had concluded that he was full of it in all honestly when today had been one disaster after another, what with his carefully shepherded cargo of fresh glacier ice that would have made him a good couple of hundred pounds selling to the guildmaster now making a joke of his hard work while he was stuck here instead of down at the Fjord in the guild hall...

But unlike everyone else on this planet, he knew in his bones that this storm was not some kind of freak natural weather pattern. He had seen, above the clouds, very very strange lights and sounds illuminating the region from the top of the Mountain. And there had been … something. Something in the very air itself that had caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand rigidly straight.

He had only ever felt that way once before in his life, on a night that he would never forget...

And here was this … tiny … girl. Who was demanding that he take her there, that she could stop it all. This tiny, utterly helpless yet crazy determined girl. A combination which would surely get her killed if she went alone.

And to top it all off, Sven (damn him) was bizarrely excited, seeming to have taken an instant like to the young woman in a way he never did for anyone.
And Kristoff just knew if he sent her away, he would be sulking for days.
And he really didn’t want to put up with that. Reindeers might be better than people, but Gods could they sulk.

He sighed and tried to keep his indifferent face on he realized he really didn’t have a choice here...
“Uch. We leave at dawn” he sighed, plonking his hat back on, again. Before shooting her a smirk as he suddenly realized he should at least make her pay for the privilege. “Oh and you forgot the carrots for Sven” he added, getting an agreeing whine from the … wait that wasn’t an agreeing whine but a -

THWACK

This time she had hit him in the side of the head! With … carrots?

“Oops! Sorry! I’m sorry, I didn't mean…” he stared at her to see her leaning forward, her hands out as she apologised over and over … then paused as he stared at her. She stared back. Then she snapped back up straight and cleared her throat, putting her hands on her hips and striking the pose as if she was the damn Duchess or something!

“We leave … now. Um, right now!”

It was both hilarious … and against his better judgement, adorable in a sort of sad blue blood way as she glanced around for a second, hesitated, then marched out of the shed with her head snapped back...

After a moment, he picked up one of the carrots from the bunch that had hit him and held it up, Sven instantly snapping it up and he just kept staring with no small amount of incredulity at the door this … whoever … had just stomped out of.

Well, this was going to be … interesting, if nothing else he supposed as he got up with a sigh and turned to start dragging Sven out of the warm hay pile-

He needn't have bothered.

His treacherous reindeer flowed past him even as he turned, out the door after this stranger he followed and to his irritation and disbelief, he found Sven was prancing as this stranger petted his nose telling him he was a good reindeer!

‘I’m the best reindeer nice lady, do you have any more carrots?’ he could hear Sven trying to scam more food and rolled his eyes as he stomped towards the sled.

“Hey, make yourself useful, we’ve got to unload this ice” he said as he started to unstrap the ropes holding his painstakingly harvested ice on. “Just stack it against the wall here” he added as that done, he picked up his first two blocks and did so.

“Got it - woah, heavy!” the woman giggled -yes giggled- as she tried to slide the block out, seemingly unaware of how heavy it was.
To her credit, she adjusted her grip and carried it over, without any seeming trouble. “Wow, it’s really clear ice” she admired the quality of the ice before she put it down and moved back to pick up the next one, smiling at him.

“You … just need to know where to look” he dismissed her praise, feeling a bit of embarrassment at her gawking over his harvested ice … why?

‘Because her praise is nice!’ Sven answered for him, the Reindeer tilting his head and gruffing at him, causing Kristoff to roll his eyes and get back to work.

“Okay stand back” he said when they had stacked the last block. And again, grudgingly, he was impressed that while her cheeks had turned red … adorably … she didn’t seem at all winded or exhausted.

“For … what?” she asked in confusion, blinking at him. He shrugged - he did warn her after all!

“This” he couldn’t help but smirk as he reached up to thump the side of the shed-

Okay, she was fast. Very fast. His fist had barely touched the metal of the roof when in between blinks she seemed move safely out of the way as the masses of fresh snow on the roof were dislodged and came pouring down to cover and bury the blocks of ice, where they would insulate them from the sunlight in case he wanted to come back for them.

“I’m okay!” a slightly muffled voice came back and he glanced down to see that this crazy girl had, somehow, managed to trip into the snow and roll over the top of it, now jumping to her feet almost gleefully, bouncing to brush off the snow. “So, uh, I don’t know your name?” she pointed out.

“Kristoff” he replied, still just … staring at her as she dusted the snow off and started to move back to the sled as he in turn started wrangling Sven out of where he was nosing through looking for more carrots, starting to harness him into place. “So … you” he managed as he realized he didn’t know her name, deciding to press her a bit as he latched the harness around Sven, “do you want to break down to me exactly why we are heading up the North Mountain? You have a weather control machine in your back pocket or something?”

Because, you know, he kinda thought it was a valid question...

“Oh right. Um, well, I’m Anna and my sister Elsa sort of has magical powers and set off a bit of a winter after knocking out Victor Steiner-Davion - totally accidently - after freezing the Fjord…”

[Chris OFarrell]

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North Arendelle National Park, Arendelle
Crucis March
Federated Commonwealth
May 11 3053
T = +9 hours.

“Anyone home? AFFC infantry! Just looking to help anyone stranded!”

There was a lack of a reply from inside the cabin-come-holiday house to his knocking and speaker enhanced voice and the door was locked.
Both were scenarios that had repeated themselves the last four cabins he had visited. These little houses were mostly expected to be empty because they were only used seasonally by the nobility, for their own private winter retreats. Used to get away from the world (especially to get away from the media he was sure) and probably do a lot of socializing, arranging marriages and all that stupid stuff nobles got up to.

And being nobles, they were not coming here to live it rough.

“And if there are any Duchesses or sisters of Duchesses inside, I’m just here to talk. I’m not looking for any trouble or snowball fights and your not in trouble either. Well, Anna is probably going to get yelled at for running off like she did from her aunt and uncle as I understand it, but nothing more than that. Promise!”

The words were not his, but had been forwarded by Cox himself to the search teams to use as a suggestion, or a variation of the same, with the strictest instructions to not spook either of the girls if they found them but just to make contact and report in.
He agreed quite happily with that after seeing the footage from the security teams at what this young girl had done. And he really didn’t want to see how well his armor held up against … you know … magic. And wasn’t eager to find out.

Still it didn’t look like that would be a question he had to face yet. There was no response to his calls, zero residuals on thermals, no sounds and no EM detected. No sign of any activity …
But orders were orders and his were to be systematic and make sure that neither of their missing bluebloods were here.
Happily, that gave him carte blanche to break-and-enter. And he couldn’t help but feel an absolutely unprofessional little thrill at that fact.
Not that he really had anything against Bluebloods - and at least in the AFFC, he had found those in the Davion Guards he served with were not slackers - but it was still amusing as he reached out and opened the door to the next little blueblood bungalow, the heavy lock simply snapping as he applied pressure to it like it was made of cardboard in his steel grip. Pushing the door into the hallway and starting to systematically search the place, calling out the whole time to try and be as non-threatening and helpful looking as a man covered in a massive war machine could.

He had been handpicked for conversion from Jump Infantry to the new Inner Sphere wide ‘Standard Battle Armor’ last year and he loved the damn more than he had ever loved his divorced wife. If nothing else was to come out of this crazy night, his unit was again proving just how damn game changing Battle Armor was going to be for the AFFC once they moved into the mass deployment scheduled for 3055. He and his team had been able to sweep the far banks of the Arendelle Fjord and the few pathways up into the hills above in a little over two hours that would have taken normal infantry days, searching for either the Duchess of Arendelle - or her sister who, in what he thought was an atypically selfless and brave (but idiotic) move for a noble, charged after her sister …

On a horse. Into a snowstorm.

By the time they had managed to deploy to the far bank, the snowfall from her sisters freakout had already been heavy enough to make passage hard for people on foot - and inside two hours, the pathways up were downright impossible even for well equipped professionals as the temperature continued to drop on top of everything else.

He and his men on the other hand?

With almost casual ease they used their suits massive strength to brutally rip through anything that got in their way - or simply hop over it with a brief burst of their jump jets with a complete indifference to the weather. Moving with speed and precision as they ran their sweep, even as the rest of the infantry Cox was assembling were now realizing their arctic warfare gear crates, in a typical SNAFU, actually contained another set of summer gear by mistake.
Some REMF was going to get their ass obliterated for that mistake. It was probably incredibly lucky for that person that Victor was unconscious right now.
And so while most of the infantry had turned their APCs around and made a high speed dash to the local militia warehouses to pick up winter equipment, he and his men had expanded their operation from searching the shorelines to checking the closest cabins to the Fjord. The thinking being there was a good chance the two young women might have gone to ground together or separately in these things as they probably knew about them. The Duchess might have even calmed down a little from her freakout and realized the shithole she had fallen into. That she needed to stop and think about her next move rather than find some tree to live in for the rest of her life. And the kid sister if she had any brains (debatable) would need to find shelter to ride out the ever increasing storm too.

But so far the houses had been empty - as this one was - he decided as he checked the last room carefully. Time to move on then.

“Mobile One to Barbarossa, Objective Echo is clean. Moving onto Objective Foxtrot, how copy?”

“Solid copy Mobile One. Mobiles Two and Three are already on their way, continue your sweep” the voice of Komondant Harrison came back and he nodded as he brought up his TACMAP. There were twelve Cabins across this part of the woods that it would be theoretically possible for a person on foot to reach which had to be checked and he had checked all of his. Which meant he was heading to Foxtrot, the rally point for his team to come back together at the most likely contact point for their quarry. One … ‘Oaken's Trading Post’ That was the most promising possibility they thought, for either of the girls to get supplies at in this area. A trading post that probably catered to all the rich bastards around here with ‘authentic’ rustic charm.

Hey, if it was ripping off the bluebloods, more power to the guy.

“Oaken's Trading Post” he muttered with a shrug as he hit his command channel again.

“Mobile one is Oscar Mike” he sent back as he stomped outside and -because he wasn’t a barbarian- he paused to wipe his feet on the doormat as the glaring sign saying to do so insisted, grinning as his feet designed to punch into Battlemech skin tore the rug to pieces, before getting clear and moving into a brisk jog, before hitting his jump jets as he started to make his way to Foxtrot, via the access road in this area, his sensors scanning hundreds of square meters with each jump.

God damnit he loved his job!

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North Arendelle National Park, Arendelle
Crucis March
Federated Commonwealth
May 12 3053
T = +10 hours.

This, was awesome! She had to bring Punzie here after, you know, she managed to get her sister back and end the eternal winter and all that.

And it sure as hell beat a cranky damn horse that ran home to sulk at a bit of snow!

There was quite a drop off the side of the sleigh as they were rather casually skirting the side of this ridge - and nothing like a seatbelt - but she oddly didn’t feel in any danger even as they slid back and forth on the snow. The reins Chris - Kriss? Kristoff? Krisstopher? What was his name again? - held … well … they almost seemed like props. She had only been in this sleigh for ten minutes and already she could tell that this reindeer, Sven, had a special relationship with this man, like the one she was starting to build with that up himself but lovable Maximus back on Corona.

She vaguely remembered from her tutors that back during the later Star League, Arendelle was host to a number of joint biological genetic engineering firms contracted to the Star League and Federated Suns. And while those companies had gone bankrupt or been shut down during the Star League civil war, they had introduced a number of animals into the biosphere. ‘Super’ versions, as they were called at the time, of Terran stock that had carved out their own niches.
Arendellian Reindeer, for example, were tougher but also much more intelligent. Behaving more like loyal dogs in a lot of ways, not quite jealously guarded by the Sami tribes who kept up Reindeer herding to this day they were almost non existant offworld and very carefully bred to keep the population healthy.
She had never actually seen one before in person before, but Sven was adorable, quivering like a puppy as she petted him, until an irate Kristopher had dragged him to the sled and they had set off.

Then, when she got settled, Sven had kicked the speed up - there were some mighty muscles in those legs! And she couldn’t help but grin wildly as they made incredible time, bouncing through the snow up the hills above the trading post, arrowing right towards the distant knife-like silhouette of the North Mountain that vanished into the cloud above.
If she had stopped to think about what she was doing, she might have even questioned her course.

But then making it up as she went along seemed to have worked out so far ... so, the faster, the better!

“Hang on - we like to go fast!” he called to her as they swerved onto a new course, coming dangerously close to the edge, with a smile on his face.

If he was trying to scare her, oh boy he was out of his depth.

“I like fast” she said right back, leaning back on her part of the bench and bringing her boots up to slap down onto the dash, smiling at him and all but daring him to go faster. Hah!-

“Woah woah woah woah!” he reached over and pushed her feet down with a deep frown, forcing her to sit normally and for a second Anna was touched, that he was actually concerned for her safety-

“This is fresh lacquer” he glared at her, before -

“Eww! EWW!” She protested as he spat on his glove and frantically polished the are where her feet had sat as more than a bit of his spittle flaked off into her face, which she frantically wiped off feeling gross.

“Were you raised in a barn?” he demanded as he finished checking the dash and apparently found that, shock horror, she hadn’t destroyed it.

The man spits and polishes his sled and sprays his passengers face and he is asking if I was raised in a barn? She thought incredulously.

“No” she didn’t quite snap back, “I was raised in a castle!”

She didn’t quite hear what he said under his breath, but she thought it might have been ‘figures’ before he pulled Sven around and deeper into the forest and away from the edge of the hill, the two slightly battered headlights illuminating the forest ahead of them enough to make their way even as glimpses of the sky above them through the clouds was finally starting to go from black into that deep deep deep almost black blue saying that the sun was starting its long rise up.

“So, I got the gist over the radio about your sister” he said after a short pause. “Don’t suppose you can fill in what made her go all ice crazy?”

“Oh, uh” she hesitated before sighing, knowing she was going to have to explain sooner or later anyway. “Well, it was my fault. I started an argument with her because I got engaged but she really freaked out because I had only met him today, err yesterday I suppose - no the day before now” she finished with a glance at her watch. “And then she just said she wouldn’t bless the marriage and-”

“Wait, wait wait wait” Kristoss cut her off, turning to look at her like she had grown a second head or something. “You got engaged to someone you just met the day before?”

“Yeah?” she blinked at the interruption before continuing with a sigh as she thought back to how badly she had screwed up, reaching up to brush her fringe. “Anyway, I got mad so she got mad and then she tried to walk away so I grabbed her glove and-”

“Hang on!” the man cut in again, turning fully to face her to the point that she wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road … err … snow … but she wasn’t willing to tell him how to drive as he looked at her in complete disbelief. “You mean to tell me you got engaged to someone you just met the day before?”

God was this man dense or just hard of hearing.

“Yes! Pay attention” she scoffed at him before getting back to the story. “But the thing is, she wore her gloves all the time so I just thought she might have a thing about dirt and-”

“Didn’t your parents, you know the Duke and Duchess, ever warn you about strangers?!” he demanded - and what was with that stupid look.

But … it was a good point.

What did she know about this guy?

“....Yes they did” she said, narrowing her eyes at him a little and edged just a little more distance between them on the bench, causing him to roll his eyes and direct his attention forward again, where it belonged. “But Hans is not a stranger!”

“Unless his last name is Davion, Melissa Steiner divorced him and the FedCom is over, I doubt that” he scoffed, and she did not like the way he dismissed Hans, even the thought of his name brought the memory of his deep deep green eyes back, making her smile. “So, what is his last name then he demanded it?”

“Westerguard” she sighed, smiling as she said the name aloud.

“What’s his favourite food?” he pressed.

“Sandwiches” she replied.

“Best friends name?”

“Uh, John?” she replied, the confident smirk vanishing from her face and a knowing look she really didn’t like on the other mans face knowing he had caught her in a tiny little fib.

“Mothers name?”

“Uh, the Duchess Consort!”

“Foot size?”

“Foot size doesn’t matter” she broke out of his stupid questioning with a scoff and roll of her eyes. These were all small little things, who cared about their foot size-

“Have you had a meal with him yet? Just you two? What if you hate the way he eats? What if you hate the way he picks his nose-”

“Picks his nose?” she looked at him like he was insane (because he clearly was, HANS picking his NOSE?)

“-and eats it?” he didn’t quite leer.

That … was gross. And so very wrong.

“Excuse me Sir” she didn’t quite growl, putting every bit of her regality she could into her stare. “HE, is a Knight!”

He returned her gaze for several seconds before turning to watch their path again.

“All men do it!” he shrugged and Anna gagged, the image of Hans doing it - ew ew ew EWWWW!
He would never do that!
God, that was just … uch!

“Look - it doesn’t matter, its true love!” she pushed past all these small things that of course she wouldn’t know yet. They’d have all their lives to find out all these wonderful little quirks each of them had … she bet that had to have adorable little hobbies that she would be able to jump in with once they were married!
A lifetime to discover each other she sighed with a smile.

“Doesn’t sound like True Love” he observed dismissively.

She didn’t know what was more irritating. The way he didn’t even look at her as he said it or the sheer arrogance of the matter of fact way he dismissed the man who had stolen her heart and swept her off her feet based on nothing!

“And what, you’re some kind of Love Expert?” she ran her eyes up and down his ‘very much alone and out in the woods with no-one but a reindeer’ figure.

Okay, that broke his smugness she was happy to note.

“No, but I have … friends who are love experts” he said in a suddenly defensive tone and she smiled as she moved in for the kill.

“You have friends who are love experts?!” she started to laugh, the sheer absurdity of it making her throw her head back and bark out a laugh to the cloudy sky, wanting to laugh … and missing the sudden slowing of the sled. “I’m not buying it”.

“Stop talking”

“Oh no no no” she grinned, not going to let him off after his dismissal of her true love. “I’d like to-”

“I mean it” he said and then suddenly there was a hand over her mouth.

“Mphhh! Hpmm Tthe-” she protested through the glove, mentally horrified at the fact that he had just used this glove to spit and wipe-

“Quiet!” he hissed … and that shut her up at once. His tone was not playful, not funny and she finally realized they had stopped, Sven was … nervously looking around and so was Kristoff.

The hand on her mouth vanished as her heart started to beat faster and she followed his gaze as he unlatched the powerful LED floodlight that had been guiding their way, sweeping it around to look at the forest around them-

And then he froze as he looked behind them. Following the beam …

She saw eyes out there. A half dozen pairs of golden eyes catching the light of the torch slowly coming out from behind trees and snow.

Then a low, growling that struck right into a primal part of Anna’s psyche started to sound as the eyes started to close in on them, step by step.

“Sven, go, GO!” Kristoff ordered and without needing any tugs on the rein or encouragement, the Reindeer was bolting even faster than he was before and with a half dozen terrifying howels of a predator after their prey, their pursuers were in motion too.

“What are they?” she asked, not entirely able to keep the fear out of her voice as she now clung very firmly to her seat as Kristoff spun around to look behind, seemingly trusting in Sven to know the way.

“Wolves!” he said curtly but with a genuine hint of fear in his voice that actually scared her. Given how casually he had taken the events of this night, but this scared him?

Her mind, very unhelpfully, reminded her then that there were other animals that had been genetically engineered by the Star League and released into the wild.

And this, was one of them.

[Kujo]

I enjoy both stories you have on this board, though if push were to come to shove I would prefer "This was easier on Table Top", but if you continued both I would have nothing but good to say.  Please keep up your excellent work and thank you very much for posting!

[mikecj]

Fun, thanks for sharing!

[Sharpnel]

After the Ngoverse, this is my favorite fanfic here. I have not seen Frozen II and likely never will, so all references to that film will be lost on me.

[DOC_Agren]

Welcome back to this

[grimlock1]

I had forgotten how subtly you wove the "Let It Go," lyrics into the narration.  Kudos on that!