This Icy Force Both Foul and Fair Has a Frozen Heart Worth Mining

Meeting Arendelle's Princess

I pulled out my old lute and began to strum. After getting ripped off and thrown at the trading post, I figured my old lullaby Sven and I always sang together as kids, 'Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People', should have sufficed. Granted, I was nine when I made it up and thought I had to add an 's' at the end of every word, hence the title, but it still soothed us whenever things went bad for us. 

Per usual, I started us off: 

"Reindeers are better than people, 

Sven, don't you think that's true?" 

Then, I changed my voice for Sven to join in: 

"Yeah, people will beat you and curse you and cheat you, 

Every one of 'em's bad, except you." 

"Aw, thanks, buddy," I said in my own voice. I continued to sing: 

"But, people smell better than reindeers, 

Sven, don't you think I'm right," 

I changed my voice for Sven to sing again: 

"That's once again true for all except you." 

I sang again in my own voice: 

"You got me. Let's call it a night." 

I changed my voice for Sven for what I assumed would be the last time that night: 

"Good night." 

I finished our duet with my own voice: 

"Don't let the frostbite bite." 

I lay down in the straw, ready for sleeping and dreamland. 

Then, the barn door suddenly opened, surprising both of us. "Nice duet," said whoever opened it. 

I immediately sat up, worried that it was Oaken or somebody related to him, come to throw us out of his barn. But, it turned out to be the young woman I met inside the trading post who was now dressed in the proper wintery attire. I also noticed that her hairstyle had transformed from a fancy bun to two pigtail braids, and she had a streak of white on the left side of her head among all of her semi-blonde red hair. Why did that suddenly seem so familiar to me? 

I just ignored it and merely relaxed a bit when I realized it was only her. "Oh, it's just you," I sighed. "What do you want?" I asked her, wondering why she followed me into the barn. 

"I want you to take me up the North Mountain," she told me. 

Was she serious? Did she even know what was asking for? Why would I ever want to take her, of all people, up the North Mountain, of all places? I just lay back against the straw. "I don't take people places," I told her flatly, covering my face with my hat. 

But, she did not quit. "Let me rephrase that," she said. Something hard and heavy suddenly hit me in the gut. It was a bag. "Take me up the North Mountain," she said a little more firmly than the first time. "Please," she included, probably trying to be polite. A closer inspection of the bag she apparently flung at me immediately told me that she was paying me to take her there with the rope and pick axe, both of which I had failed to purchase back at the trading post. 

I looked at her again, cynically this time. She must have really wanted to go up the North Mountain if she purchased these items for some random stranger. She was probably also a bit crazy if she wanted to go to the North Mountain in the first place because I tell you, even making it halfway to the North Mountain at all was no picnic, especially for someone with little to no experience whatsoever with the mountainous terrain. "Look, I know how to stop this winter," she claimed.