Iduna of the Northuldra (Agnarr x Iduna)

Chapter 3

We stand at the front of the castle as its tall, majestic gates slowly open up for us. The soldiers that opened them bow for Agnarr, and he thanks them for doing their job.

"Uh, who's this?" one of them says, gesturing toward me.

"A friend. Her name is Iduna. My father said it was alright."

"Okay." The man gives me a demeaning stare, and I insecurely start straightening my clothes and my hair. Everyone else looks so nice and I look like a forest rat.

I walk with Agnarr, and he smiles and starts spouting random facts about the castle and his family.

"The castle is one hundred years old. That's, like, two lifetimes! It was made by my great great grandparents and the other settlers. It was originally made to hold a village of ten families, who were going to equally share the castle."

He sees a flower on the ground and picks it - smelling it and then sticking it in his coat pocket.

"Why didn't that happen?" I ask.

He shrugs. "It's said that my great grandparents fell in love while building this place, and that they were so in love that the settlers let them have the castle and start the royal dynasty. I'm not so sure I believe that story, but it's a nice one nonetheless."

"It is," I say, stopping to take in the grandiosity of the castle. It's huge, with intricately placed stones and finely cured wood. The doors are the size of three me's stacked on top of each other, and the windows are almost as thick as iron. "What a generous gift this must have been. To work so hard and give it away just because two people were in love."

We finally walk in, the door being held open by a servant, who stares me down judgmentally. I wave, and the man waves back, with a concerned look on his face.

I look at all the paintings and the trophies and the rugs and the tables. Every piece of furniture is neatly crafted, and carefully placed. It's beautiful, but does someone really need this much stuff? Is someone actually sitting in this furniture all day?

Agnarr sniffs the air, a satisfying smile coming to his face. "Chocolate! I smell it from the kitchen! Come, before my father catches me!"

He takes my hand and drags me to the kitchen, giddily opening the door. There are chocolatiers mixing away at  treats, and placing them on trays to put in the ice box.

"Mrs. Andersen! Can me and my friend have one of your chocolates?"

An older woman turns to smile at me. "Ohhhh, I'm sorry dearie, but I have to save each and every one for the banquet this evening."

She looks around to see if anyone's watching, smirks, and moves one of her hands from behind her back to reveal two, round truffles.

"Don't tell your father."

Eagerly, Agnarr snatches one out of her hand.

"Excited are we? And no thank you?"

"Thank you!" he says, with his mouth full.

"And who are you, dearie?" she says, with a kind smile.

"Oh, I'm Iduna. I'm, uh, visiting."

"Oh, how I love visitors! And Iduna is a lovely name. I hope you enjoy your stay! And take the candy, dearie, it's very good!"

"Okay! Thank you!"

"Not a problem," she says, with a wink.

We walk out of the kitchen and I put the sweet in my mouth. My eyes widen at how delicious it is. It's even better than the fudge and the chocolate bar I had in the village.

"It's SO good! Can I please have some more?"

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I walk down the hallway with a whole basket of truffles in my arms, chocolate smeared across my face. Agnarr grabs a few as well, swallowing them quickly when he sees a soldier passing by.

"Where would you like to go first?" he says, stopping to salute a set of armor.

"I'm not sure. I still don't know the place well."

"Why don't we go to one of the yards? The one outside my window has a swing."

"Sounds like fun!"

Agnarr takes me to the yard, and lets me sit on the swing as he pushes me on it.

We both laugh as I fly higher and higher into the air, high enough to see the whole kingdom.

"So, you told me that you live in the forest."

I signal for him to let me off, and he stops the swing.

"Is it just you there? Are there other people?"

I sit under a tree, and Agnarr sits next to me. "My family lives there. As well as other families. It's a small community - we all depend on each other."

"Wow. I've never heard of that. What do you mean by 'depend on each other'?"

I chuckle. "We share resources. I go fishing sometimes, then another kid goes fishing other times. Some people collect firewood, others make our blankets. And then we compile everything and split it equally among each other."

"You don't sell anything to each other?"

I shake my head.

"Then how does your economy prosper?"

"'Economy'?"

"Like, how do you make money?"

I start playing with the grass around me. "We don't necessarily have money. We have a stash we share for things we need to get from the market here. But that's about it. We like to make sure everyone's taken care of."

He nods, intrigued. "That's very generous of you all. Here we sell things, and the people who don't have any money end up freezing or starving to death. I wish I could help them, but I'm just a kid. There's not much someone my age can do about that..."

"Well, of course there is! You can start by not stealing chocolate from your villagers."

"I-that was one time!"

"One time too many."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

I give him a smirk. "Nope."

He sighs and lays down on the grass. "You said that your group of people lives in the woods..."

I nodded, unaware of where he was going with this.

"You share resources and you don't have much of an economy. And the way you dress..."

My eyes widen and I straighten my clothes again. "Yeah? Um, what about it?"

He narrows his eyes. "It's tribal. It isn't like the rest of Arendelle's clothes. It's...different." I gulp, as he sits up to get a better look at me. "I think I know why. Y-You're Northuldran, aren't you?"