Reborn

6 - Trouble

"Look! The sky's awake."

Elsa lifted her head and looked across at Olaf. He was lying on top of Sven, gazing up at the sky with childish awe and wonder. A soft smile touched her face as she watched him. Just like Anna. She chuckled as she remembered how Anna would say that whenever she woke her up during the night. It was her excuse for why she wasn't asleep like her older sister.

"The sky's awake, so I'm awake!"

She still did that.

"Hey, you ok?"

Her thoughts shattered, Elsa looked over at Kristoff, who was looking at her with concern. He was sitting next to her on his sleigh that Anna had given to him. It was then that she realized that she was silently crying.

"Yeah," she said with a sniffle as she reached up and wiped her eyes. "I was just thinking how childish Anna is."

Kristoff chuckled fondly and focused back on the road, as much as for safety as because he was afraid that the queen would notice that tears were filling his eyes. "Yeah. She jumps on my bed every morning to wake me up to watch the sun rise. Every. Single. Morning."

Elsa groaned and rolled her eyes. "Ohhhh. How 'bout walking me up during the night to play? Thankfully, not every night, though. It was cute when she was a child, but I would think that she would have more sense now that she's 24!"

"What do you mean?" Kristoff laughed. "She's still a child!"

"Yeah!" Olaf piped up, sitting up on Sven's back. "She and I love to steal food from the kitchen while the cook's out. Especially those chocolate croissants. YUM!"

Kristoff gasped. "So that's what keeps happening to those! Cook thought it was rats, which is why she started hiding them in the cupboard right up in the top right hand corner of the kitchen since last week."

"Oh, is that where they are?" Olaf said.

Elsa shot him a glare. Kristoff chuckled awkwardly as he realized his mistake. "Oops."

"...now we can continue our midnight snacks!" Olaf rambled on. "Oh, those were the days."

"Wait a minute," Elsa said. "Midnight snacks? Is that why all the other food kept disappearing until last week?"

Olaf paused as he realized that he had given it all away. "Oops."

An idea popped into Elsa's mind and she leaned over and whispered in Kristoff's ear, "We should set up an ambush for the next time they do it."

"If we find her," Kristoff pointed out.

Oh, right. Elsa sighed sadly and leaned back in her seat. "Yeah," she muttered. Tears pricked her eyes again. "If we find her." Where are you, Anna?

"Whoa, Sven!" Kristoff instructed as he pulled on the harness. Sven stopped and Kristoff climbed out of the sleigh. Looking back in, he saw that Elsa and Olaf were both fast asleep, cuddling each other. Seeing that their quilt had slipped a little, he reached up and pulled it back up; then he grabbed one of the lanterns on the sleigh and headed towards the woods to the left of them.

We need firewood, he thought as he entered the forest. We need to keep warm.

A cold breeze wafted through the trees, biting his cheeks. "Brr," he muttered as he drew his jacket more tightly around himself. Resting the lantern on a nearby tree branch, Kristoff then bent over and began picking up sticks and fallen branches, acorns - anything that he could use to start a fire.

As he worked, his mind went over what Pabbie had told him and Elsa. Why is this...Thing after Anna, Elsa, Olaf, and I? What have we done? Or are going to do? What's going to happen to Arendelle? Why are we going into hiding instead of trying to protect Arendelle? Why aren't we 'ready'? What are we lacking?

What's happening to Anna?

His chest constricted as his mind concocted millions of possibilities of what the Thing was doing to Anna.

His hands began to tremble.

Stop it! Imagining things won't help. Just do what Pabbie says and we'll be fine.

A twig snapped.

He dropped and rolled behind a nearby bush, surrounded suddenly by darkness. He gritted his teeth in frustration as he remembered that he had left the lantern hanging on the branch, signalling to whoever or whatever was out there that someone was there.

Kristoff peered through the leaves.

Nothing.

Another twig snapped.

Right behind him.

A tip of a sword touched the back of his neck.

He froze.

"Well, well, well. Patchy, look what we have here."

~

Anyone remember who Patchy is?