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

The Journey Going Further Forward

After our escape from the wolves, I dared myself to look down the chasm and saw my sled, completely smashed to pieces. If that was not bad enough, the sled also caught fire most likely from my lantern. No, no, no! My beautiful sled! The very thing I had worked so hard for that was finally truly mine. Gone. 

"Aw, but I just paid it off," I groaned sadly, watching my poor sled go up in smoke. 

As I watched it burn, however, the snow beneath me was starting to way and I began to slide down off of the cliff towards the chasm below. "Uh oh," I said. I desperately began grabbing more snow, but it just kept giving way and I continued sliding. "No, no, no, no!" I cried as I just slid faster and faster down the face of the cliff side into the chasm below. 

A pick axe and rope were suddenly hurtled at me, landing just inches from my face. "Grab on!" Anna yelled. Without any real thinking, I grabbed onto the pick axe. "Pull, Sven, pull!" Anna ordered him. She and Sven both pulled the rope that was holding onto the pick axe until I was safely well enough away from the chasm's edge. 

Once I was a fair distance away from the edge, I let go of the pick axe and just lay on the ground, the full impact of losing my sled suddenly hitting me. It was more than just a mode of transportation; it was the very key to my entire ice business. I worked so hard for so long to completely pay it off. There was also the fact that literally everything I owned was packed inside the back of it. Now it was nothing more than a burning pile of ashes at the bottom of the chasm. I covered my face, groaning. 

"Whoa," I heard Anna let out when she probably looked down the chasm after she and Sven had approached me. "I'll replace your sled and everything in it." 

It was the first time she had been considerate of me the whole time since I met her, but it did little to make me feel any better. I was just in too much mourning over my old sled to fully appreciate even the thought. I just groaned again. 

"And... I understand if you don't wanna help me anymore," she said. She then began to walk away, sighing in sadness. 

I just let her go on without my help. Yes, she had a surplus of spunk and an incredible amount of boldness, I will admit that much, but that did not make her worth the risk I faced if any more of what happened at the time were to happen any further on the journey ahead. So, I just continued to lay on the snowy ground. 

But then, Sven approached me and nudged me with his muzzle like he was asking me if I were still going to help her. I just looked at him with a look of validation that I was definitely not. "Of course, I don't wanna help her anymore," I told him. "In fact, this whole thing has ruined me for helping anyone ever again." 

Sven gave me a look, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. "She'll die on her own," I said for him. 

"I can live with that," I told him. Although in reality, I was really not one-hundred percent certain that I actually could. At that very moment, however, I was just trying to talk myself out of going after her to help her further. 

"But, you won't get your new sled if she's dead," I replied for Sven. 

I frowned at him. "Sometimes, I really don't like you," I told him. 

Think what you want to about my relationship with Sven. Talking for him is a good way to think out loud and sort out my thoughts. That was how it started anyway at the very least. It sort of just progressed from that into me simply translating exactly what Sven was thinking at any given time. I am pretty good at it actually. Whether it is his want for a carrot or to be scratched or something, I will know. I am an expert on everything there is to know about Sven. 

But, I also have deep conversations with him too, and not to mention arguments. I can always count on Sven to sort of act like the physical form of that little annoying voice in my head that makes me do things I do not want to do, but know that I probably should, anyway. He always wins out at our arguments like those. Why is that? 

Anyways, back to the story. "Hold up!" I hollered back to Anna. "We're coming!" 

"You are?" she asked happily, but she, sensing that she probably sounded less than authoritative, quickly changed the tone of her voice to nonchalance. "I mean, yeah, sure. I'll let you guys tag along." 

Now that, I simply had to chuckle to. Anna definitely had spirit, and she also apparently had confidence. I picked up my bag of supplies, and Sven and I headed after her. 

We walked all throughout the rest of the night. We trudged through the snow drifts and marched up snow-covered slopes. Then, the sun began to rise after about two hours into our journey from the point of which my sled was lost to us. We soon walked over a narrow mountain ridge which overlooked Arendelle. Anna stopped to take a look at it. She was initially shocked by what she saw. "Arendelle," she said, stunned. 

I came up behind her and took a look at it, myself. The entire kingdom was covered completely in ice and snow. "It's completely frozen," I loudly remarked, equally as shocked as she was. 

We both just stared at it in silence for a moment, but then Anna spoke. "But, it'll be fine. Elsa will thaw it," she said optimistically. 

I raised my eyebrow a bit, skeptically. How could she be so sure that Elsa actually wanted to help thaw Arendelle, or if she even could thaw her own kingdom? "Will she?" I asked her in uncertainty. 

"Yeah," she replied still in the same upbeat tone, although I could still sense some doubt behind it. "Now, come on," she said confidently, turning away from the frozen kingdom and pointing her hand in one direction. "This way to the North Mountain?" she asked. Ha! That was cute. If only the journey there really were going to be as easy as all of that. 

I chuckled then took her hand and turned it upwards several degrees. "More like this way," I informed her. 

Her eyes widened as she got what had to be her first real look at the North Mountain in the distance. The highest, most precarious mountain out there. Yep, that was our destination. That really was the North Mountain.