Chapter 19: Reencounter.

After paying Oaken, a merchant the size of a mountain that had a cabin in the northern woods, and thanking him for the amazing service he'd given them, Anna continued on her journey. Her guards were still with her, but they seemed more nervous than she would have liked. They were very young too; probably new recruits that had had the bad luck of being picked up by their superiors to accompany her to the Ice Queen's frozen realm. She was sure none of the higher officers had been eager to take on the task.

Anyways. It's not like it mattered. No one ever got beyond the edges of the North Mountain, and so she'd decided since before she got up from bed that morning that she'd tell them to leave her there; where the cold got colder and the ice grew large and menacing. Where the storm was worse. If there was a limit to her sister's "kingdom" that was it; the edges of the North Mountain.

She wasn't that far away now; the previous day she'd made some good progress, and by twilight she should be arriving at her sister's place. That is, assuming she didn't perish of hypothermia first.

At least the sled was more comfortable. Yes, they'd had to switch their horses for a reindeer-pulled sled, because otherwise the horses would have died of sheer cold. Reindeers were fluffier, and stronger. They'd take them to their destiny.

Most of the day, Anna spent looking at the frozen landscape and hearing the conversations between her guards. Since she was the queen, no one would talk to her (out of respect or because they were too intimidated, she didn't know), and so she was forced to be solely a spectator. She fell asleep multiple times, more out of boredom than because she was really tired, and by the midday she started wishing they were attacked by a pack of wolves, or a ferocious bear. Maybe even one of her sister's snow monsters! But no. Everything was pretty uneventful… that is, until they got closer to the North Mountain.

The whole journey the temperature had been fiercely cold. In a "winter is here" kind of cold. It was uncomfortable, and her nose and fingers felt like they would turn blue at any moment, but it was nothing extreme (at least by Arendelle's standards), and her winter clothes kept her protected enough. But it all changed as they left the forest behind and found themselves in a snowy wasteland.

The change was sudden and instantaneous, like the temperature had dropped 30 degrees in an instant. When Anna inhaled, the air itself felt like it froze her insides. When she exhaled, the tiny clouds of mist instantly turned into dozens of snowflakes. In her skin, very small crystals of ice started forming, and her few hairs started to look like miniature icicles. The cold was so intense, she could no longer feel it. She only felt how much it hurt her exposed skin, and was forced to cover her neck and most of her face with a thick knitted scarf. So did her guards.

The reindeers looked like an icy version of giant porcupines, but seemed to be fine nonetheless. However, they still had a hard time convincing them to keep going. Not that they were eager to move either; the sudden drop of temperature was more than enough for Anna to want to turn around and run as fast as possible back to her home. Only her strong sense of duty, and the fact she didn't have anything left back in Arendelle kept her going.

Just a few minutes later, however, they found another obstacle; a line of large icicles, sprouting from the ground, that extended as long as they could see. The guards had to break some with their swords in order to pass through the barrier. And almost as soon as they did just that, a huge blizzard started, the wind roaring with such force they could barely hear each other if they yelled. It was so dense, they almost couldn't see a thing in front of them, and were constantly fighting against said blizzard to advance step by step. It goes without saying that the cold only got worse, to the point Anna's eyes started hurting because of it, and she had to shut them.

It was at that point that she decided there was only one sensible thing to do. Though it terrified her to no end.

"Stop!" She yelled at her guards, and when they didn't hear her because of the roaring wind, she had to do it again, only louder. "Stop!" At this, her guards turned to look at her with what she assumed were concerned expressions, but she couldn't really tell because of their scarfs and hats.

"Is something wrong, my Queen?!" One of them, the oldest, yelled in response.

"You need to go back now!" Anna explained. "It's clear my sister doesn't want you reaching her palace, but she might let me!"

"We won't let a blizzard stop us!" One of them protested. "I'm sure it'll recede soon enough!"

"This is no ordinary blizzard!" The Queen insisted, being absolutely sure of what she was saying. It was too strong and sudden to be a natural occurrence, after all. "It's my sister's magic! She won't let you pass! I have to go alone!"

She hoped she looked surer than she really was. After all, maybe Elsa didn't want her specifically to reach her domains, and being alone in the middle of her blizzard would just kill her before she had even had the opportunity to see Elsa. Or maybe she didn't have a way of knowing who got to the North Mountain, and the blizzard was permanently there, keeping everyone out, which meant Anna would just freeze to death there, like countless others before her. Either way, she decided she didn't want to risk the lives of her guards unnecessarily, even if that meant swallowing the utter terror that invaded her at the prospect of being left alone in such a dangerous environment.

"But… your majesty…" One of them protested weakly, obviously hesitant about the idea of just abandoning their monarch in the middle of a snowstorm, but Anna cut him off by getting up and out of the sled as quickly as possible. She stood there, in front of the sled, looking at her guards with a serious expression.

"I'm grateful that you accompanied me this far." She started her goodbye. "But I knew I'd have to do this alone sooner rather than later. Please, go back to Arendelle now. I can handle it."

They all looked like they still wanted to protest, but Anna just turned around and started walking (with great difficulty) up the mountain. For a few minutes, her guards tried to follow her, but it was soon clear that, while she was allowed to move (rather slowly, but still), they were stuck in their place. So finally, after what to Anna felt like an eternity, her stubborn guards turned around and left. And the storm followed them, proving Anna's theory that Elsa would only let her get through.

Relieved by the fact that it looked like her sister wasn't going to kill her (yet), Anna sighed and decided to continue with her journey, feeling way better now that the air didn't feel so cold and she could open her eyes without feeling like they were being stabbed by microscopic icicles. Now, if she didn't have any more interruptions, she'd probably get to Elsa's ice palace in a few more hours.

However, just when she was taking her first steps (looking directly to the snow-covered ground in order not to fall), she heard a voice coming from someone just ahead of her.

"Hey, Anna. It's been too long, hasn't it?" She looked up startled to look at this person, and was very surprised to find a familiar face staring back at her.

"Percival?" She asked, her eyes widening. "B-but how?! We all thought you were dead! When you disappeared…"

"You really thought I would let Elsa run away alone?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or you just thought she'd kill me?"

"Well…" Anna blushed, unwilling to admit she had bought the rumors that started circulating when the prince had disappeared shortly after her sister's departure. She knew he cared for Elsa, and that he'd even tried to slow down the soldiers that had been sent to capture her, so it wasn't hard to imagine he'd go after her. However, when he never came back, many had just assumed Elsa had killed him, including Anna. He was Elsa's fiancé after all, and she knew just how much her sister hated princes.

"Well, she might kill me now if I don't bring you back to her as soon as possible." Percival spoke after a few seconds. "Come on, I bet you're eager to see her too." That said, he turned around and started walking and, not wanting to be left behind, Anna was quick to follow him.

"How did Elsa know I was coming?" She asked once she caught up to him.

"The snowflake she gave you. You still have it." He explained. And Anna was more than a little surprised he knew about it, much less that she'd decided to bring the pendant to this trip. After all, it was safely tucked in her pocket.

"Can she… sense it or something?" Anna asked, and Percival answered with a nod.

"It's pretty lucky you brought it, or else she would just have sent some snow golems after she felt someone walking into her territory." Anna gulped at his explanation. She had almost left the snowflake, but decided against it, thinking Elsa would be pissed if she didn't see her wearing it. She was now really glad she'd decided to take it with her.

The rest of the journey was mostly silent, but Anna was barely surprised about this; Percival was never particularly talkative. Not with her anyways. So it was up to her to make a little talk, mostly asking him some questions, like how on Earth they managed to find food around there. Or clothes. Or furniture. Or anything, for that matter. She was disappointed when most of the answers basically came down to "murdering people and stealing their goods".

He was incredibly casual about this too. Not that Anna was all that surprised. Only an evil person would stick with her sister after everything she'd done.

That said, she'd never even suspected Percival was a bad person. He was always a scrawny boy, with a mostly shy attitude and who quite obviously preferred to be left alone. She thought he was very much like her sister in that matter, and that's why she imagined they'd be the perfect couple. Now she thought the same, but for very different reasons. They were both heartless sociopaths who killed without problems.

She felt a chill run down her spine, and not precisely because of the cold. The prospect of being in a giant ice palace in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of two murderers wasn't exactly reassuring.

But she tried not to think too much about it, and instead focused on observing Percival, see how much he had actually changed. The answer at first glance was not much. He was still rather short for a man in his twenties, and though his heavy clothing made him look bulkier, Anna suspected under all those layers of clothes and furs, he was still rather thin. His hair was also still short, if maybe a little messier than she remembered, and he didn't have a beard or mustache; just a few stray hairs here and there. His skin was also now sickly pale, probably due to the cold temperatures, and he had black circles under his eyes.

Anna would have probably worried for him is she hadn't been worried about him. The most notorious change, after all, was that his eyes reflected how twisted his soul really was. His gaze was lost, even when he looked at her, and had a maniac glint that suggested he was imagining bad things. Either that he'd done in the past or that he planned to do in the future. Anna wondered which plans he had for her. And also wondered what Elsa would say about them.

She had so many questions about her sister! Was she the same girl that had fled so many years ago? Did she still love her? Why had she killed their father? Was she planning to kill her too? Did she want to take over Arendelle?

Of course, she knew the best way to answer those questions would be to ask Elsa herself, but… it wouldn't hurt to also ask Percival, right? At least the most pressing ones. The ones about herself.

"Uhm… Percy?" Anna called him, but he didn't turn to look at her. "I can still call you Percy, right?" She asked, trying to be friendly.

"I've told you a million times to just call me Percival." He answered, clearly annoyed by her calling him that. She remembered getting this same reaction before, but back then she didn't care. Seeing him now as a potential threat, she decided it was safer not to piss him off.

"Okay then, Percival. I have a question." When he didn't answer, or acknowledged her in any way, she decided to keep talking. "What do you think my sister will do when she sees me?" At this, he stopped, and Anna almost bumped into him, but caught herself in the last second. Then, he sighed and kept walking.

"I don't know." He admitted with a grimace. "All these past years she's been obsessed with you, but… sometimes she's lamenting that she left you behind, and others she literally creates ice versions of yourself only to blast them away." He shrugs. "So maybe she'll keep you as some kind of pet, or maybe she'll kill you as soon as we arrive. It really depends on her mood."

"I-I see." Anna gulped. That wasn't very comforting.

She contemplated running away, but Percival had a sword, and Elsa could probably sense her exact position now that she was so close. They'd both probably kill her the moment she tried to go back to Arendelle, so she decided the safest option was to reach Elsa's palace and play nice in hopes her sister would spare her life.

Thankfully, she didn't have to wait too long to see her; the suspense would have killed her otherwise.

As she had imagined, she and Percival arrived to the peak of the North Mountain just as the sun was setting in the horizon, painting the crystal walls of reds and oranges instead of the usual majestic blues that were seen even from Arendelle's castle. She had to admit… the palace was a lot more impressive up close.

She'd always known it was massive, since it was easy to spot it even from great distances, but just how massive was somewhat subjective. Some said it was just as tall as Arendelle's castle, but less wide. Others that even the tallest towers in the world wouldn't even come close to the height of the smallest one of Elsa's castle. The truth was… somewhere in between. Yes, it was taller than Anna's own castle, but definitely not something out of proportion. The main door alone was at least thrice the height of Anna, and it barely came close to being a third of the palace's actual height. Though, she had to admit, most of said height was due to icicle-like towers that she suspected had little to no functionality (except maybe being intimidating) due to how thin they were.

The palace itself was also taller than it was wide, but not by much, which contributed to its intimidating appearance. It was also covered in ice spikes that looked to be perfect to impale people, even though there thankfully weren't any bodies around.

Shockingly enough, despite being more than a little impressive in a scary manner, it was also quite beautiful. Her sister had decorated it with intricate snowflake patterns, and the stairs that led to the main door had elegant railings that would make any king jealous. There was also a balcony above the main door that looked fairly well crafted. All in all, the palace looked like it was built by two different people; one that wanted to make it as beautiful and elegant as possible, and other that just wished to impose fear in the hearts of anyone who saw it. Anna couldn't tell which one had won.

As she ascended the stairs, she marveled when she noticed that, despite being completely made of ice, she couldn't slip on them. She assumed this was part of Elsa's magic. More surprisingly though, was that when the doors opened by themselves and she walked past them, she instantly felt a comforting warmth wash over her body, instantly bringing feeling back to her cold limbs. Again, this despite the fact the entire palace, including the furniture, was made of ice.

Inside, it was the same story than outside; there were beautiful fountains and chandeliers adorning the main hall, alongside deformed sculptures of monsters and menacing icicles. Again, it looked like the work of two different people.

She didn't have much time to contemplate her surroundings though, because as soon as the main doors closed behind her, a familiar voice called her from the staircase at the other end of the room.

"Hello, my little sister."

A/N: Hi, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that, if you did, you leave a review telling me what you think of it. Next chapter we'll see the big reunion between sisters! That'll sure be interesting, right?

Oh and, by the way, from now on and until the end of the story, Anna will be twenty one and Elsa twenty four. So, I won't be putting their ages on top of each chapter anymore, okay? Well, that's all for today. Hope to see you soon :)

Thanks to my beta reader moonwatcher13.