Archive of Our Own

Merida had never seen anything like the Sunbeam.

It was too big and magnificent to be compared with the boats the clans traveled with, and it didn't resemble the makeshift vessel they'd converted their caravan into either.

No, this one had painted rigging, a deck she could run around on, and a sculpted winged goddess that emerged from the prow as if she were born from wood. It plowed the waves with the grace of a swan and the tenacity of a soldier, with sails flapping in the wind, guided by the expert hands of its captain. Rapunzel had called it a sailing ship.

Merida thought it was beautiful.

She had realized how much she'd missed the sea as soon as she had felt the sun on her cheeks and the air blowing through her hair. With no storms in sight or overboard friends to look for, this time she could enjoy the view of the blue horizon, a promise of thrilling adventure.

"It's nice to be on the road again."

Merida reopened her eyes and turned to Rapunzel. Her friend had one hand raised to shield herself from the lash of her long braid, and her billowing skirt revealed her bare ankles.

"I thought you'd had enough o' hanging around outside the walls, given what we've been through," Merida said.

"Yeah, of course I was happy to be back home," Rapunzel admitted. “But I missed it being just us, far from the kingdom, heading straight into the unknown.”

Merida rested her elbows on the parapet. "Thas true. If it weren't fo' the fact that 'is time we're going into the least exciting situation possible, 'is would be a great adventure."

Rapunzel approached her. "Really, I don't understand why you didn't stay home with Eugene, Lance and Pascal, since you've been huffing and sighing at the idea of the coronation since we left." She looked at the fluffy white clouds without facing Merida. "You're not trying to make up for Cass, are y—"

"Land!" cried a voice from above. "Arendelle ahead!"

As always, Jack was perched on a yard, where he had spent most of the journey scanning the horizon and jumping from mast to mast.

He stopped shouting and came down to them with his usual grace. He raised his inseparable staff towards where the carved prow pointed. "Look, it won't take us much longer. Hey, you okay?"

Hiccup had joined the group, holding his stomach and squinting. "Yeah, I can't wait to get out of here."

Merida didn't agree at all. She snorted a chuckle as she patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. "C'mon, the great dragonlord defeated by a wee boat?"

"I'd rather be safe in a saddle a hundred feet off the ground, than rock on this ship at the mercy of the sea."

"Wind or water, they're still currents."

"Ha ha. At least Toothless would catch me if I fell."

"Sorry, Hiccup," Rapunzel said. "A dragon would be too noticeable for this mission, and you know he'd never agree to be alone on the ship while we go ashore."

"Speaking of noticeable," Jack said, gesturing to the flag flying overhead, up high on the mid-mast, "was that your idea?"

Rapunzel nodded proudly. "Pretty, isn't it? I made it so no one will know we're here."

Indeed, the fabric was not embroidered with Corona's sun on a purple field, but with an imaginative jumble of heraldic symbols that would have given any scholar a headache: a red dragon chasing a polar bear around a central flower.

Merida thought that it would cause much more discussion than Rapunzel's family crest, but since she was no art expert, she kept her mouth shut. She had no right to comment on other people's ideas, not after what she'd done.

"Well, I guess it's a good time to go change," Rapunzel said. "Come on, I can't wait to show you guys!"

No one seemed too happy at the prospect, but they still followed her to her personal cabin where, when she wasn't on deck with them, she'd locked herself away, sewing for hours. Along the way, they passed some of the attendants that Rapunzel's parents had insisted on assigning them, decidedly less interesting than the crew that ran the ship. Merida had made friends with some sailors and had asked a thousand questions about their travels, but she was secretly convinced that even those couldn't beat the weird stuff they had seen during the expedition led by the black rocks.

They entered the chaos of fabrics and mannequins that was Rapunzel's cabin, before she dumped piles of clothes on their arms and pushed them in turn behind a screen.

Merida had a nasty flashback of blue dresses and hair bonnets, when it was her turn to change, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the dress prepared for her wasn't as tight as she'd expected. The skirt was a nice deep dark green, and the embroidered jacket had puffed shoulders.

"It's different from yer usual style," she observed curiously once she came out. "Seems simpler."

Rapunzel finished pinning a medal — or was it a recycled brooch? — on Hiccup's chest, while he looked awkward in his red military uniform, and ran to straighten Merida's skirt. "I thought I'd look at Arendelle fashion for inspiration. It might help us blend in. So, what do you think?"

Jack tried in vain to widen the collar of his jacket on which fresh frost had already appeared. Merida almost laughed seeing him all dressed up like that. 

"I feel a little dumb," he said. "Are you sure there isn't another way to crash the party? Maybe we could pretend to be servants."

"The only way to find out what Cassandra is up to is to be at the reception, where we can get a good look at the situation. If we dress up as servants, they'll send us to the kitchens at the first opportunity," Hiccup said. "Not that I enjoy the idea of, um, walking around dressed like this, but we don't have much other choice."

At the mention of Cassandra, the general tension rose. Merida bit her lip and hid a fist in the folds of her skirt.

"Ready to go?" Rapunzel asked with forced glee.

"It's show time," Jack muttered as he passed Merida, while they were leaving the cabin.

She wondered if, for the first time in her life, her mother's lessons would be of any use.

Back on deck, they saw that their ship was entering the small bay overlooked by Arendelle: a large village of houses arranged along stone streets, watched over by a castle adorned with purple and green banners, all protected by an imposing fjord. Merida craned her neck to see the end of it, and she thought climbing the fjord would be both crazy and fun.

But it was no time for leisure. She walked down the gangplank with the others, looking around the port crowded with foreign ships and over-dressed nobles.

They quickly followed the river of aristocrats headed for the festive-looking village, but Jack stopped short in what must have been the central square, risking creating a traffic jam.

"Wait," he gasped as several people passed them throwing deadly glares. "You're not wearing shoes!"

Merida looked to where Jack was pointing at, and had just enough time to catch a glimpse of Rapunzel's feet, before she adjusted her dress to better hide them. "One of the benefits of long skirts."

Jack was absolutely outraged, Merida assumed because he'd been forced to wear knee-high boots.

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "What if someone notices?"

Rapunzel shrugged. "It wouldn't be the end of the world, it's happened to me before. Besides, I don't think I'm the flashiest person here."

She turned to look not too discreetly first at Merida's curls, which were forced into the precarious balance of her hairstyle by a million pins, then at Jack's white hair.

"Psst , take a look at 'is," Merida told him, and she lifted her skirt just enough for him to see her shoes. Her mother would have scolded her for the indecent behavior.

"They're your riding boots!" Jack exclaimed, even more offended. "That's not fair!"

"Rapunzel said I can't take ma bow, so I had to find a solution to hide a dagger somewhere. Just 'cause ye can carry yer staff everywhere..."

Hiccup faked a very loud coughing fit, grabbed the wrists of those closest — Jack and Merida — and dragged them into a more secluded alley. Rapunzel followed them, hiding a giggle behind her hand.

"Could you repeat that a little louder? I don't think the guards heard you quite right," Hiccup hissed as he let them go.

Jack crossed his arms. Merida pouted.

"He started it."

"And you insisted!"

Hiccup sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You'll get us kicked out if you keep going with this, and goodbye to the undercover mission. Right, Rapunzel… Rapunzel?"

But she had already stepped out into the early morning sunlight, in the opposite direction from which they had come.

~

The call leading her was made of violins, light and sugar.

Rapunzel's feet seemed to have a mind of their own, as they carried her out of the shadowed alley into a small square. She was greeted by the merry melody of an improvised band, and by the small crowd of citizens gathered to dance between lampposts and street vendors' carts. The decorations that moved in the wind, the music, the smell of good food and the carefree atmosphere typical of those days when one wants to do nothing but have fun, reminded Rapunzel of the celebrations for the Lost Princess, before they'd simply become, well, her birthday.

The more reasonable part of her conscience, the one that usually told her that staying up all night to finish a painting wasn't a good idea, or that she should think twice before jumping into the void holding onto her hair, or that two lumps of sugar in her tea were more than enough, metaphorically tugged on her sleeve to remind her that they had a mission, and they had to hurry, and it wasn't the time for games.

Rapunzel ignored it and stepped forward.

If people thought it was strange to see a rich damsel among them, they didn't show it. Maybe they were too busy with the party.

And Rapunzel couldn't blame them: the music filled her ears like a lullaby, after days where the waves, the seagulls and the raw voices of the sailors had been the only background. It was a different rhythm than what she was used to at home, but it didn't stop her feet from urging her to join the dance.

"Now what's she doing?"

"There, we've lost her."

"Again."

Rapunzel's braid swayed in time like a metronome as she lost herself in the fast notes, carried away by the enthusiastic movements of the people around her.

She spotted her friends, who were looking around with skepticism, and beckoned them to join her.

The boys shook their heads at her encouraging gestures, but Merida never shied away from an opportunity to do physical activity, and she grabbed Jack's arm, and he pulled Hiccup after him, and he rolled his eyes despite already having a smile on his face.

For a while it was as if the mission had never existed. No magic, no dangers, no ambushes to stop. Just the three of them, the dance steps and the desire to get lost in a kingdom far from their problems.

In between songs, Rapunzel saw the energy of her friends fade, but they all stuck around, just as distracted as she was. Merida challenged — and beat — the men of the village in a show of strength staged nearby. Hiccup inspected all the shop windows that overlooked the square, and spent a long time studying a clockmaker's entrance that looked older than the stones of the square itself. Jack had been taken hostage by a large group of children and led to a corner between the houses.

Fearing for Jack's health, but above all for the safety of his clothes, Rapunzel waited for the end of the song, applauded the musicians, gathered up her skirts and approached the band of children with extreme caution; she had learned how mischievous the children from Corona could be, and she knew she had to be very careful about her dress. Not that a smudge or two would have bothered her, normally, but in this case they certainly wouldn't have helped making her go unnoticed. If Cassandra had found out she'd been followed…

"Hi!" she greeted the children in a friendly tone.

Some stopped jumping rope, some let go of sticks and tops, others looked up from their sweets. Rapunzel thought they were adorable, with their chocolate-smeared faces and fancy clothes that were too baggy, or patched up with love and care, or soiled with dirt. Or all three. Eugene would have asked to adopt them all.

She missed him already.

A little girl removed a finger from her own nose. A boy openly pointed to Rapunzel.

"Wow, long hair!"

"Are you a princess?"

"Are you Jack's sister?"

"Where do you come from?"

"I have to pee."

Rapunzel endured the barrage of questions and answered each one with patience.

"And what are you all doing?"

Jack, who currently had one child astride his shoulders and two more dangling from his neck, grinned wide.

"We're playing, of course," he said with that genuinely gleeful expression he saved only for those fleeting moments when the weight of powers and worries seemed to have left his thoughts. It usually took the combined effort of the three of them to make it happen.

Merida chose that moment to sneak up to them, followed by Hiccup. Both seemed to have lost much of their carefree mood from earlier.

"Jack," Merida said as she tried to show something she was holding without letting herself be noticed. "What are these?"

In her hands was a handful of toy soldiers, translucent and crystalline, and Rapunzel thought they were glass, before touching one of them with her fingertip and realizing that they were freezing cold.

Jack, noticing Merida's wariness, left the children with an excuse and turned around to create a small circle between the four of them. He studied the little soldiers and shrugged. "They're toys."

Merida shook her head. "They're made o' ice , Jack."

"We said you shouldn't use your powers here," Hiccup added sternly.

"They're not mine."

"Look, I know you miss playing with the kids you left home, but we can't attract too much attention, and we don't even know if the people in Arendelle are of the magic-is-amazing mentality, or dear-gods-in-heaven-help-us." 

"Dude, I'm telling you I didn't make those," Jack said, more serious than ever. And it wasn't a fake expression, Rapunzel had learned to recognize when he was joking or not.

Merida frowned. "Then who did it?"

"Are we sure they're made with magic? There's a guy in Berk who can carve blocks of ice like it's wood," Hiccup said.

"It's no ordinary ice," Jack replied, twirling a toy soldier in his pale fingers. "I can feel it."

Merida glanced at Rapunzel. "Whadd'ye think?"

She hesitated. She too took a soldier from the pile and examined it from all angles: the piece of ice gave off a sensation of cold, icy winds, condensing breath, snow under the feet and shivers on the skin, but it didn't have the same playful accent as Jack's magic. It was more discreet, almost evanescent. And refined.

"Merida, where did you find them?"

"A wee boy was playing wi' them, we made a trade—don't look at me like that, I didny give him ma dagger in exchange! One o' ma rings can buy him a whole store!"

Rapunzel returned the toy to Merida. "Well, I don't know who's behind these, but clearly they don't care if word gets out about their powers. Maybe…"

The tolling of a distant bell startled the group. Several people looked up at the castle towers that rose above the roofs of the houses, caught in a look of awe.

Rapunzel held her breath and almost jumped into Merida's arms. "The coronation! We'll miss it!"

They gave the toy soldiers to a lucky little girl, said goodbye to the others, and hurried away from the square. They found the main avenue, broad and traversed by several people, and followed it in the general direction everyone was taking. Green and purple banners hung everywhere, in the same hues as the crest on Cassandra's forgotten invitation, and flower-bedecked poles lined the street. A few carts forced them to squeeze through groups of people who looked at them in annoyance, but they managed to reach the wide-open gates at the end of the bridge that connected the village to the castle.

By them, a gray-clad soldier barred their way with a spear.

"Halt," he said commandingly. He pointed to Jack's staff with a gloved hand. "Weapons are not allowed in the castle."

Jack seemed about to retort with a disrespectful comment or a piqued protest, but Hiccup was quicker to step between the two.

"Actually this is mine," he said, shooting a meaningful glance at Jack and reaching to take his trusty staff from his hands. "Thanks for keeping it. All this walking has made me tired."

The guard, obviously confused, eyed Hiccup suspiciously, and he moved his pant leg just a little to show the metal prosthetic.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sire," the soldier muttered uneasily, immediately drawing back his spear. "I beg your pardon."

"No problem."

"I didn't know weapons were forbidden in the castle," Rapunzel mused aloud.

"Precautionary measures for the coronation," explained the guard, who after the blunder seemed more inclined to casual conversation. "Because of, um, past accidents."

"An answer 'at surely hides an interesting story," Merida commented, "but unfortunately we don't have time t'listen to it. Right?!"

Rapunzel gasped. "Oh! Right. Sorry, we're really late. This is our invitation."

"Go ahead."

They left the gates behind them to join the stream of men with chests glittering with medals and women with flowers on elaborate headdresses across a large courtyard. They were on their way to a small building with a sloping roof and stained glass windows. Rapunzel glimpsed the main facade of the castle, which was adorned with decorations that reflected the sun in a thousand reflections and looked very suspiciously like ice.

Jack nudged Hiccup as they walked through the front door just in time to hear it slam shut behind them with a series of protesting squeaks. "Thank you for your gracious help, sire."

Hiccup kept on walking, pretending to use the staff for support. "You're very welcome, my lord—ah-ah," he added hastily, moving it away from Jack's eager grasp. "I'll keep this, for now."

Jack grimaced and crossed his arms, disappointed.

Rapunzel understood how he felt: she too had experienced the strange, almost uncomfortable feeling of missing the constant presence of her blonde hair, immediately after it had been cut by Eugene. However, it was a physical and mental emptiness that she'd been missing since it had grown back. She had said goodbye to it once, she didn't like having to get used to it again, and maybe because she didn't want to, she just couldn't anymore.

Once inside, Rapunzel understood that they were in a chapel, not too big but still majestic, with a harmonious structure almost entirely made of wood.

They took their places on one of the benches facing the pulpit, but before Jack could sit down with them, an elderly little man cut him off to steal his seat without even looking at his face. Jack had a hand ready to freeze his beautiful gray mustache, as Rapunzel had seen him do a thousand times, but fortunately the frantic gestures of the others convinced him to reluctantly go and sit down a few benches behind them.

Rapunzel looked around, fascinated by the decorations in which the wood had been carved on the ceiling, in the same style that could be found almost everywhere in Arendelle. On a balcony that ran along the pulpit were some people in red robes, probably a choir.

Her gaze finally fell on the first row of benches, which she assumed to be the one of honor, in which she glimpsed a blond man and what could have been either a child bundled up in a white coat, or a white-haired dog.

When all those present were in their seats and the chapel fell into the silence reserved for important occasions, one last group of people made their entrance.

A young woman walked down the central aisle, ethereal in her blinding white clothes, with a head of loose light blond hair, followed by a short train as impalpable as water. She was accompanied by an elderly lady and another pretty woman, both dressed in neutral colors and soft materials, but Rapunzel's attention was inevitably drawn to the girl in white. She watched her go to the priest's left as the other two joined the front row seats, marveling at the almost electric feeling she'd given her as she'd passed their bench. Rapunzel had no trouble recognizing the impression that something great was hidden inside her, like the first time she had seen Jack, and she no longer had any doubts as to who the author of the ice soldiers was.

Merida leaned in to whisper, "She's no' wearing dress shoes either. Jack's gunna freak out when he notices her sandals."

Hiccup cleverly camouflaged his laughter with a cough. Rapunzel turned to check Jack's reaction and look if he too had felt the same power, and beside seeing him squeezed between two men in military uniforms, indeed his brow was furrowed. He noticed Rapunzel staring at him questiongly, and shrugged.

From above, the choir intoned a solemn chant, and through the doors finally entered the most anticipated person: the future queen of Arendelle, elegant and smiling at the new day, with a velvet dress, a dark cloak and emeralds on her ears. Despite having a neat bun of auburn hair and looking maybe a few years younger, Rapunzel realized that she was the sister of the woman in white.

The future queen stopped in front of the priest, but not before turning briefly to give a cheerful nod towards the front bench, in a gesture that betrayed her young age for the first time.

The ceremony then officially began, and if at first Rapunzel had told herself that it wouldn't be anything particularly tiring, having attended some celebrations in Corona, she soon had to revise her expectations. In fact, she found out that Arendelle's protocol was far more demanding and complicated, and it didn't take long before Rapunzel's attention began to shift to the windows, the architecture and the people, but after a while even that got boring. She always kept an eye out for Cassandra's possible entrance, almost hoping that she would come and interrupt the ceremony, but nothing unusual happened.

Beside her, Merida blinked often, an unmistakable sign that she was struggling not to doze off, and Rapunzel spent the remaining time counting how many times she would startle awake, before finally collapsing. She wondered once again why Merida hadn't stayed home.

Finally, the woman took two ceremonial items from a cushion and turned to the seated crowd, now wearing a golden crown on her head, as the priest repeated an ancient-sounding litany that concluded with an "Anna, Queen of Arendelle" which Rapunzel welcomed with infinite relief.

Anna stepped into the open air, and from the roar of festive cheers that echoed through the chapel, it was evident that the crowd had gathered outside to greet their newly crowned queen.

Merida got up, yawning loudly. "Cassandra hasn't shown up yet. Good. Now what d'we do?"

"Let's follow the people."

~

Hiccup didn't dance much often, he wasn't the type of guy who started prancing around the Great Hall after a few mugs too many, like Gobber did, but a minute of quadrille was enough for him to realize that he deeply despised it.

The reception didn't take place inside ballroom as he had expected, on the contrary they had moved to the castle courtyard, surrounded by walls and buffet tables, on a wooden platform built between two fountains the water jets of which had been crystallized in sinuous sculptures.

In fact, before the dancing had begun, the woman dressed in white had raised her arms with an elegant gesture, and the water had obeyed her command, bending in swirls and transparent arcs, just like that, in broad daylight, under everyone's eyes. The magic had elicited several raised eyebrows and a few not too friendly mumblings from the nobles. Instead, the citizens applauded the spell.

Apparently, the Queen had decreed that everyone could attend the outdoor reception, as Hiccup had overheard from a couple of ladies who had later complained how unbecoming that choice was. He didn't understand the offense; in Berk no one would have batted an eye if common people mixed with the chiefs of the tribes.

The fact remained that magic, while seemingly nothing new, wasn't exactly welcome either, at least among the foreign aristocracy, so Hiccup had held on to Jack's staff. It made dancing a little tricky, but no one would have dared complain about the one-legged guy, right?

Jack and Merida had disappeared somewhere, managing to escape the dance, so Hiccup ended up with Rapunzel and three other couples. Whenever they had the opportunity, they tried to catch a glimpse of Queen Anna chatting with guests not too far from the platform. A difficult task, considering that one of their dance partners was a short, mustachioed man — perhaps the very same one who had stolen Jack's seat — who wouldn't stop trying to make conversation with Rapunzel.

"Do you think that woman is part of the royal family?" Hiccup asked her as they joined hands after swapping partners with the other couples.

"I heard one of the guests refer to her as Her Royal Highness. Another one called her Princess Elsa. From what I understand, she's recently abdicated."

Surprised, Hiccup glanced once more at the mysterious woman. From her posture, he didn't doubt her royal upbringing. "It means she was the queen before, right?"

Step forward. Step back. Turn around.

"Yeah. Apparently she has now become the protector of a magical forest, whatever that means."

"And how does this have anything to do with Cassandra?" Hiccup shook his head in frustration, nearly stepping on someone's foot. "Why did she come all the way here?"

Rapunzel bit her lip. "When we found the invitation that she lost, I didn't understand either, but now I'm starting to think she's looking for something."

Hiccup took a guess. "Power?"

"Probably. Without the scroll of Demanitus, she'll have to look elsewhere to find the second encantation."

"And the answer would be in Arendelle?"

Step forward. Step back. Take the right hand of the lady in front of you — no, her right.

Rapunzel nodded. "There's an ex-queen here who knows how to create ice, Cass must have heard rumors of magic and she thought it was worth a try."

For a few long minutes, Hiccup was silent, his mind occupied with cumbersome thoughts that he finally couldn't hold back anymore.

"Do you think..." he lowered his voice further. "Do you think Merida knows something? She followed Cassandra for days, maybe she heard her say what she's planning, but she didn't tell us."

The memory of Merida's temporary betrayal still burned as the day she had turned her back on them. Hiccup felt the anger and disappointment consume him from the inside, whenever he thought of how Merida had run away with the person who had taken Toothless from him, who had caused so much suffering in and around Corona. And Hiccup saw the same feeling reflected in Rapunzel's green eyes, whether she admitted it or not.

And all for a sliver of Moonstone.

Or, as Merida would have said, for a little bit of freedom.

Rapunzel was about to answer him, but she got distracted by the exaggerated bow of the old man they were dancing with. They had danced with. The music was over.

"Milady, if I may be impertinent," he was saying to her with one hand behind his back and the other adjusting the glasses on his nose, "I couldn't help but notice that you are a prodigious dancer. I assume that this is not your first ball?"

Rapunzel, clearly disoriented by the sudden attention, blinked. "Uh…"

Hiccup joined her. "And you are?"

"Duke of Weselton, pleased to meet you," the man replied, barely giving him a disinterested look, before turning back to Rapunzel. "I don't remember seeing you on other occasions. Or maybe I'm wrong?"

"Yeah," she said vaguely, giving no real answer. "Um, there are balls in our kingdom. Lots of balls."

At those words, a spark seemed to light up in the Duke's eyes. "Really? Yours must be a prosperous empire, if it can afford such frequent expensive celebrations, and invest funds from the royal coffers. Balls are times when it is easy to squander money on organization… Have I already said that they are expensive?"

Struggling again, Rapunzel simply nodded, which the Duke interpreted as a sign for another attack. "And what is the economy of your lovely kingdom based on, if I'm not too prying? It must be a very profitable business."

Hiccup was starting to seriously regret stopping Jack from freezing his face.

"We trade in wool," Rapunzel blurted out on the spot. "Cow-sheep wool."

The Duke raised his eyebrows so much that a cobweb of wrinkles appeared on his forehead. "I have never heard of such a beast."

"It's like a sheep, but with big horns," Hiccup attempted to explain offhandedly.

He hesitated. "So… like a goat?"

Oh, for Thor's sake!

Thankfully, the Duke wisely decided to change the subject, even though he still seemed bothered by the goat talk. "If you sell wool, you'll live in the north. What did you say your kingdom was called?"

"Norland," Rapunzel stated confidently, as they had agreed to answer in case anyone asked.

"Pardon me, I don't think I know where it is."

"Oh, it's east of Babileeny, obviously!"

The Duke of Weselton looked more confused than ever. "Obviously."

Hiccup knew it was their chance to escape, and took Rapunzel by the hand. "Excuse me."

They took refuge near the buffet tables, behind the shelter of a pink and white cake. Meanwhile, the band had started another song, and the dancing had resumed.

Hiccup let out a liberating laugh. "East of Babileeny? Rapunzel, that was amazing!"

She smirked. "I had to learn to lie when I lived in the tower, even if I'm not proud of it."

"We have to tell the others. Where are they?"

They scanned the large courtyard with their eyes, until they spotted Merida's hair, which had already defeated the hairpins and had fallen on her back in a cascade of fire.

Hiccup felt his smile fade the moment he saw the person who Merida was holding by the forearm. The combination of midnight black clothes and turquoise hair was unmistakable.

For a moment, Hiccup was afraid Cassandra was about to take her away again, but then he noticed her annoyed expression and Merida's frustrated one.

He heard Rapunzel catch her breath, and he lightly put a hand on her shoulder. "Wait. They're near the gates, we can try talking to them without making a mess."

Rapunzel had her eyes glued to her once handmaiden and best friend, but she nodded firmly.

They ducked to hide behind the buffet table and walked its length toward the gates, so by the time Cassandra finally saw them, it was too late.

Her annoyed expression sharpened. "Did the whole kingdom run after me, by any chance? How did you know I was here?"

"You should be more careful with your stuff, Cassandra," Hiccup said.

She wore a ball gown the same color as the black rocks in Corona. On her heart gleamed dimly what might have passed for a nice brooch, but they knew very well it was the Moonstone.

The destiny stolen from Rapunzel.

Cassandra freed herself from Merida's grip. "Let me do what I have to, and maybe I'll let you have a normal party."

"Sorry, but I have a feeling that whatever you have in mind, neither we nor the hosts will like it," Hiccup replied.

"Give us the stone an' let's go home, Cassandra," Merida added, on the verge of tears. "I don't know what ye came here fo', but if half the things I've heard ye say in the tower are true, I swear I'd rather die than do nothing."

So she didn't know about Cassandra's plans. Hiccup breathed a sigh of mental relief and felt guilty for doubting her.

Cassandra looked at them one by one, clenching her jaw, and when she got to Rapunzel, she gripped the fan in her hand so hard it made her knuckles turn white.

"Please, Cass," Rapunzel simply said in a whisper.

This seemed to infuriate her more than any other threat.

"You don't understand anything, Rapunzel."

"I understand you. I know you. I know you're trying to prove your worth to everyone, but at this rate you'll never be able to go back. We had to beg your father not to follow us, you know, so the kingdom wouldn't be left without its captain."

Cassandra pointed the fan at her, furious. "What do you know about what I want, or about my father and I? You, with your perfect little family, perfect boyfriend and perfect friends? You spent months doing nothing but complain about the only thing your parents wouldn't let you do, without having the guts to stand up to them," she said, raising her voice. "Well, I did. It was me who took you outside the walls. You may be used to sitting around and crying, but I was taught that if I want something, I have to fight."

Hiccup looked around using the general distraction, and spotted Jack, sat atop the roof of the wall beside them, who nodded at him and stayed hidden. Hiccup reciprocated with a quick movement of his head.

Rapunzel gasped. "How can you say this, when I told you what happened to me? Perfect parents? My mother blames herself every day for failing to protect me. My father was so afraid for my safety that he was willing to lock me in another tower. Even if I can understand your wish, Cass, you're doing too much damage for me to defend you anymore."

Cassandra grit her teeth. "I had no other choice."

"You hurt our friends."

"They were in the way!"

"You kidnapped Varian."

"He didn't want to give me the scroll!"

"You captured Toothless!"

"I needed him!"

It was a good thing Hiccup didn't have the skills to use Jack's staff. Or that he wasn't hiding a dagger in his boot.

They were starting to attract attention. The girls had gotten pretty loud, and even though they were in a less crowded spot, the few guests within earshot looked rather alarmed. Not to mention the guards outside the gates, who had probably heard everything and were already reporting to the Queen. Hurting, capturing and kidnapping? Yeah, not exactly the behaviors one looks for in the people they're letting into their home.

"You better leave, Cassandra," Hiccup said.

The desperate note in her voice gave way to sheer determination. "I don't think so."

She raised her right arm, and before Hiccup or the others could do anything, Cassandra's fan transformed into her black sword, and the usual indestructible armor appeared from the Moonstone on her chest, replacing the elegant gown.

The stone glowed so brightly it was blinding, her owner muttering words that Hiccup didn't hear, until the light reappeared on the buffet, where the dishes glowed blue.

The light focused on the four-story cake, which began to grow and grow. In a short time it broke the table on which it was placed and became so large it towered over the people.

Panic spread. The commotion caused by the breaking of the table finally got the attention of all those present, who saw the cake rise by magic and fled, some towards the doors, some towards a shelter in the courtyard. The music abruptly ceased and several armed guards approached the dessert, which had now reached the size of a Monstrous Nightmare.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Cassandra fled to the castle doors, which she destroyed effortlessly with her sword. She slipped into what looked like a hallway and disappeared from Hiccup's sight.

Merida sprinted to pursue her, but she was blocked by a giant fork. "What the—?!"

Hiccup rubbed his eyes, yet the cutlery was still there, stuck in stone as in butter, as tall as a man. Attached to it, stretched a shiny appendage of a substance that Hiccup guessed was cream, at the opposite end of which was the cake.

The monster opened a pair of icing-and-meringue eyes and gaped its jaws at them, before letting out a roar that shook the banners. The few guards still standing fled.

Hiccup, who'd seen his fair share of oversized creatures, friendly and not, wasn't impressed, though he had to admit that evil meals were new to him too.

"Jack!" he yelled, throwing the staff, which Jack promptly snatched up in one fluid motion, as he dropped off the roof and joined them.

Rapunzel undid her braid with a quick gesture that Hiccup had now seen her do a million times, while Merida doubled over and fumbled with a boot.

The four of them arranged to face the monster: Jack with the staff firmly held in his hands, Merida with a dagger drawn, Rapunzel with her hair in her fist and Hiccup… Well, he didn't have his Inferno with him, or any magical body parts, but as Astrid always said, he still had his empty noggin.

Keeping an eye on the cake, which was wreaking havoc while waving its forks in a homicidal frenzy, Jack turned to him. "Well, Chief, what's the plan? Do I go find Cassandra?"

Just the fact that he was asking him, instead of running after her as he once would have done, showed the trust Jack placed in him.

Hiccup darted his gaze quickly around the courtyard, taking in the frightened crowd, among whom he noticed some unfortunate people who had been overwhelmed by the mob, and shook his head. He missed Toothless, with whom he would have easily flown over the chaos and reached Cassandra, but it wasn't time for nostalgia.

"No, let's all stay here," he yelled for the others to hear over the frightened screaming. "You attack from above: let's see what happens to cream when it freezes in less than a second. Merida, draw its attention to you! Rapunzel, try getting those forks out of its hands… tentacles… you get the idea!"

"And you?" Jack asked.

"I'll go find a weapon for myself."

"Good luck with that!"

"Jack?"

"Mh?"

"Don't call me Chief."

He grinned. "Sorry."

Hiccup didn't stay to watch Jack fly away; he turned around and dashed towards the meager remains of the buffet, ignoring the directions of a tall blond man towards the gates.

Broken in two like a boat sliced by the dorsal fins of a Seashocker, the table had spilled most of its content on the ground, in a chaos of appetizers and courses in which Hiccup looked for any blunt object useful for his cause. He hoped to find a nice fish knife, or even better a cleaver, instead he had to settle for a serving knife that probably couldn't inflict any serious wounds. At least not in his hands.

He leapt to his feet and pushed his way through the guests again to the war zone, where he found his friends still engaged in the fight.

Following his directions, Rapunzel had lassoed an arm of the monster, which Merida was meanwhile pricking with the dagger, running around to avoid getting hit by the other limb. From above, Jack shot freezing beams that blew up chunks of cake, spattering cream everywhere, including on them.

Unfortunately, Hiccup realized that although Rapunzel was propping up with her feet, she risked being dragged away at any moment, that Merida's dagger did little against the enemy, and that the shreds of cake scattered around quickly crept to rejoin the central body, making attacks practically pointless.

Hiccup went to Rapunzel and helped her pull; their joint effort managed to stabilize her grip on the tentacle.

"Jack, the arm!" Hiccup shouted.

He nodded and raised his staff, from which a bolt of ice shot out and hit the monster's hand. In a blast of cream, Hiccup and Rapunzel went sprawling, narrowly avoiding the giant fork that fell between them.

The cake let out a deafening moan, and Hiccup didn't even have time to feel guilty, because the other fork planted itself just an inch from his right hand. The monster snatched the cutlery off the stone and started waving it furiously, out of control.

"One out," Rapunzel exclaimed as she got to her feet.

Hiccup took his small knife back. "Now it's the other's turn."

He thought quickly. As much as he didn't like what he was about to say, he couldn't ignore that the earlier roar had been of pain.

"Merida, hurt it!" he said trying to keep in mind that that thing wasn't alive, and Cassandra had probably added that impression just to spite them.

Merida removed her hands from her ears and raised the one that held the dagger, as if to show it to the cake. She bent her arm back.

A deep breath…

And zock!, with a precise throw, the blade ended up right between the monster's eyes, sending it into a rage. It brought its remaining arm to the injured spot, making very angry noises, and Hiccup was sure that if it'd had feet, it would have stomped them in irritation.

"Nice shot!" Jack complimented.

"Thanks!"

And now that the tentacle was still…

"Rapunzel, arm, now!" Hiccup ordered.

Golden locks knotted on the cake. Like what had happened with the first, Jack broke the second arm. More terrifying sounds. Another huge fork on the ground.

"Yes!" Rapunzel said, happy, and hugged Hiccup, who was closest.

Just before disaster struck.

A slight tremor shook the earth, as the mutant cake once again glowed blue from within. Its eyes lit up like fire and a low, dull rumble made everyone jump.

Suddenly, the pieces of cake that had been scattered all over the place grew in size, opened pairs of eyes, and screeched in defiance. Hiccup counted at least thirty, more or less.

He heard somewhere behind him Merida mutter, "Aw, shi—"

~

Jack really hoped that Hiccup had a plan.

He'd found out that freezing the evil cake was useless against the dark magic it was permeated with, and facing an entire army would only complicate the situation.

Jack gripped the staff tighter and bent his knees, ready to defend himself, but a conversation not far from the gates made him turn around.

"Is everyone safe?" the young woman with magic was asking.

"Yes, Kristoff and Mattias stayed in the plaza with them," replied the queen of Arendelle.

Her sister put a hand on her shoulder and said something Jack couldn't hear, because a bunch of mini-cakes — still the size of a horse — surrounded him menacingly. Jack wondered how a dessert could even look intimidating.

"Thanks, but I don't want seconds!" he said, freezing the enemies. However, the ice layer that formed on them broke after a few seconds, and they began to hiss again.

Uh-oh.

Jack silently pleaded the Moon, himself, and his staff for an adrenaline rush that would unleash his powers, as had happened before, but nothing happened, obviously. One of the cakes swung towards him, and Jack knew he would soon find out what it felt like to be eaten by food.

"Elsa, wait!"

A flash, a crackle, and Jack found himself staring at his reflection on an ice statue. The cake's eerie grin had been trapped as it had appeared a second ago.

Jack let himself float in the comforting embrace of the wind, and landed outside the circle of monsters, next to his savior.

The woman named Elsa studied him curiously, and Jack did the same, sensing something both unknown and familiar about her. He felt the bizarre instinct to smile at her.

"Sorry I'm late, the evacuation took longer than expected," Elsa said. She looked at Merida fleeing half a dozen enemies, Hiccup wielding his useless knife, and Rapunzel using her long hair like a whip. "Who are… No, it doesn't matter. We have a more important problem right now."

"Do you have any idea how to take those things out?" Jack asked. "I tried to freeze them, but this happens." 

And he pointed to the imprisoned cakes just as a thousand cracks formed in the ice, which shattered soon after.

Elsa frowned. "How is that possible? It should work."

"Moon magic."

She looked at him like he was joking. "What do you mean—ah!"

She jumped and rubbed her face, shocked by the bullet of cream shot directly from the mouth of one of the mini-cakes.

Jack wanted to ask if she was okay, but Queen Anna's voice drowned out his question.

"Hey!" she yelled as she marched closer, fist raised menacingly. "That's my sister you just spat on, meringue-face!"

She dropped to the floor and lifted one of the magically magnified forks like a baseball bat with both hands, then pounded the cake with a war cry.

Elsa jumped in alarm. "Anna, no!"

Anna, yes!, Jack thought. The queen of Arendelle was using the fork to hit the monster with so much enthusiasm that she barely gave it time to rebuild.

"Don't sneak into the kitchens before the ceremony, they said! Wait for the reception to eat it, they said! I had dreams about that cake!"

Soon only a shapeless mound remained, but the most interesting thing was the shards that emerged from it. Jack saw that they were fragments of a gray stone tablet, and they were covered with carvings. He had an idea.

Elsa was amazed. "How did you do that?"

Out of breath, Anna just shrugged. Unruly strands had escaped the bun and fallen on her forehead and back of her neck. "Dunno," she mumbled.

"Maybe you've discovered their weakness, Your Majesty," Jack said, equally impressed. He turned to the others. "Guys, new plan!"

His call was lost in the air, too distant to distract his friends from avoiding getting killed by monsters. Jack then flew to each of them to report the discovery.

Last was Rapunzel, who stopped looking at one of the smaller cakes as it magically came back whole and turned to Jack. "A spell?"

He nodded. "Like the one you used on Cassandra's tower. I think all monsters have one in them."

Hiccup ducked to avoid an attack. "Rapunzel, do you think it could work even if it's just written?"

"…I don't know, Varian's the one who studied the scroll of Demanitus. Maybe the tablets were enchanted while they were being engraved."

"Might as well try!" Merida's comment came from nearby, before she joined them.

"Yeah." Rapunzel thought for a moment, then she turned to Hiccup. "Help me take care of the big cake while Merida and Jack handle the small ones, please."

"Why me?" Merida said, almost doubtful.

Rapunzel gave her free hand a quick squeeze and smiled. "Because you can destroy the tablets with your dagger."

Elsa, who must have followed Jack to listen, stepped forward. "What can I do?"

Rapunzel seemed surprised at her initiative, but her smile returned, perhaps even brighter than before. "Can you help Jack? And An… Your Majesty?"

The young queen waved her hand. "Call me Anna," she said cheerfully.

"If you want, we could use another person."

Anna seemed particularly happy to be included in the plan. She straightened the fork she was still holding and assumed a fierce stance. "Sure. Oh, look, reinforcements are coming."

They all turned towards the gates, risking getting eaten in distraction, but as Anna had announced, a steed was approaching quickly with a patter of hooves on stone.

Jack blinked several times, sure he'd seen wrong, but there was just no way to change the vision at the end of the courtyard.

Mounted on a large reindeer, a snow man — a real, rough one, complete with a carrot nose, not a sophisticated ice soldier — was riding toward them, armed with a long stick like a javelin.

"For Arendelle!" he shouted with a resolution worthy of the captain of the royal guards of Corona, aiming straight for the boss cake.

Still, Jack had to admit that he'd had stranger days. He looked at Elsa and lifted his staff. "Ready to binge?"

She cracked her knuckles. "Ready."

Merida snorted so hard that the curl that hung in the center of her forehead flew away. "Ye know, I thought I'd really seen them all by now. A'ight, let's go."

Thus their Table Clearing Operation began: now aware of the stone heart of the monsters, Jack and Elsa focused on creating flows of ice towards the center of them, in order to expose the tablets that were punctually crumbled by Merida's blade. In a short time, their actions created a rhythm in which the two of them were tearing up cakes, and she was jumping from side to side to finish them.

Between one enemy and another, Jack got a closer look at Elsa's magic. She wasn't the first person with powers he'd met, but the fact that she, too, could create ice intrigued him. Of course, the way her attacks felt and acted was different. Jack's magic had been compared to electric shocks, but hers was very… defined? Each sliver had an essential but functional shape, each snow crystal a perfect geometric shape. But it didn't appear contrived, on the contrary, it reminded of the way nature always followed precise patterns.

He was spending way too much time with Hiccup.

Finally, when nothing but sticky memories remained of the army of cakes and the three of them stood back to back, Jack allowed himself a breather.

The others were holding off the larger monster, which whipped the stumps its arms had been reduced to, but it was evident that they were tired. It was only a matter of time before they'd collapse.

To his left, Elsa said, "There's only that one left."

"I tried to tear it apart, but it's terribly stubborn. It pulls itself together in half a second," Jack complained.

"Why donnye attack together, then?" Merida suggested, to his right.

Jack looked doubtfully at Elsa, who raised an eyebrow at him. "We can try."

"I guess."

Merida stepped aside and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Make way, very powerful flu magic comin'!"

Rapunzel and Hiccup, who had heard that warning on more than one occasion before, scrambled out of the way, taking Anna with them. Even the reindeer trotted to safety.

With a nod, Elsa and Jack stood side by side and extended their arms.

Jack gathered every ounce of energy that was left in his body and focused it on his staff, feeling a tingle in his fingers. With each breath he took, the flow of power increased, so much so that the wood got completely covered in frost. The magic wasn't visible yet, but Jack's arms felt stiff with the effort of channeling whatever strength he had left. There was only a thought to hold that boundless power.

He heard Elsa take a deep breath too; as she inhaled, the air around them dropped several degrees, and white swirls appeared on the stone pavement. When she exhaled, Jack felt the force of the coldness reach up to him, icy, unstoppable, ready to unleash.

Without needing to agree on the right moment, both released their powers. A white and blue beam shot out of their hands and hit the center of the cake squarely, causing it to tilt.

Jack was completely overwhelmed by magic, but he couldn't move a single muscle, as if he'd been shocked. His eyes were watering and he could no longer feel his tongue.

In front of them, conspicuous cracks formed on the cake. Jack took this as a sign that it was time to stop, and he spread his arms, snapping the beam. Beside him, Elsa had done the same.

The ice explosion was terrible. Jack shivered, and for a terrifying second he feared they might not be able to contain the damage. Pieces of dessert flew everywhere, but the magic was luckily absorbed by the monster.

"Everything okay?" Elsa asked him with a little shortness of breath. She must have had quicker reflexes than Jack's, because unlike him, she wasn't completely covered in cream.

Jack nodded, though his ears were ringing slightly and he had to check his legs hadn't turned into jello.

He followed the others as they approached the remains of the cake. The heart of the enemy wasn't an engraved tablet like the others, but a lump of rock so black it seemed to absorb every color around it. It pulsed rhythmically with faint turquoise light, quite disgustingly.

Before anyone could ask how to proceed, Rapunzel stepped forward. Her eyes had turned white, and her hair was a river of pure golden light that seemed to outshine even the Sun itself. She knelt quietly, and put a finger on the heart.

When she touched the rock, it shook, as if it knew its end had come, before it shattered to pieces.

Rapunzel closed her eyes and slumped over, but Merida's ready hands kept her from slipping and hitting her head.

Rapunzel blinked a couple of times. "I'm sleepy," she whispered, semi-conscious.

"That was…!" Anna said, but she saw someone running towards them. "Kai, what is it? Is the castle under attack? Is the staff inside okay?"

A man with an elegant suit, sideburns and the unmistakable look of a butler, raised a hand and took a breath for a few seconds before explaining, "The servants are all safe, Your Majesty, but a woman broke into the library, caused a great commotion and fled from the guards. She left with a strange black boat without sails."

"Cassandra," Jack and his friends said in unison.

Anna looked at them questioningly. "Should I send our ships in pursuit?"

"No, you'd never reach her," Rapunzel said tiredly.

Hiccup wiped his brow. "In the library, you said?" He scratched his chin. "Anna, do you happen to have books here… about magic, for example?"

She snapped her fingers. "Fairytales, collections of legends, written myths, stories from all over the world… You name it, we have it!" However, her smile faded when she saw their dejected expressions. "...Oh. That's not a good thing, is it?"

"I'm sorry," Rapunzel murmured. "We couldn't stop her in time."

Anna didn't lose heart. If anything, she seemed more determined. "Kai, could you check which books are missing, and have someone bring something for the guests to eat and drink from the kitchens?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Elsa, do you mind going to Kristoff and telling him we're all right? He'll be worried."

"I'm going."

Then she looked at the four of them. "Okay, before I go back to the guests, you guys need to sit down for a moment and tell me who you are. This way."

Her serene expression hadn't changed, but something in her tone made it sound like a firm order.

"Can ye walk, lass?" Merida asked Rapunzel, who nodded weakly and let herself be helped to her feet. "C'mon, you'll rest soon. Hiccup, give Jack a hand. He's paler than usual."

"I'm fine," Jack protested.

Hiccup ignored the comment and put Jack's arm around his shoulders. "Yeah, yeah, sure you are."

Jack had to admit that his support helped. He wasn't sure he wouldn't have tripped on his own feet, otherwise.

Anna led them inside the castle, along some hallways and empty rooms, together with the snowman and the reindeer, which evidently had permission to stay inside. Since Jack didn't need to watch his step, he was able to take a good look around, and silently admire the sober elegance of the interior. The flower he'd seen on the banners outside showed up just about everywhere.

They arrived in a less sumptuous living room than others they had passed by, with a few small sofas and two armchairs placed in front of an extinguished fireplace.

"Sorry, but do ye have some clean clothes t'give us before we dirty all yer furniture?" Merida asked.

Anna nodded. "Olaf, take them to a maid, please."

Jack was about to follow the others behind the snowman, but Elsa arrived at that moment and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I want to talk to you for a moment, if you don't mind," she said seriously.

Jack slipped out of Hiccup's grip and followed her down the hallway they'd come from, holding on to the walls to keep himself from falling, even though he was already starting to feel better. Or at least, he no longer felt like he was standing on a boat at the mercy of a storm.

Elsa stopped by a large window. The light made her white dress shimmer, as she hesitated.

"What did you want to tell me?" Jack encouraged her. They had left the door open, and he felt Anna's gaze on the back of his head.

As if those words had given her the green light, Elsa started to spit out questions. "Who are you? What are you? Where are you from? How did you get your powers, were you born with them? Do you know others like you? How—"

"Wait, hold up," Jack interrupted. The interrogation was making him feel a bit nauseous again. "About who I am and where I'm from, Rapunzel and the others will explain it much better than I could. For the rest, why don't you start telling me about yourself? That way it'll be easier."

He wasn't ready to blurt out all of his business. She was a stranger after all.

Elsa crossed her arms and stared at a spot on the windowsill. "I was born like this, and my powers have grown with me. I met four other Spirits some time ago, and have stayed with them in the Northuldra forest since then."

"Spirits?"

She nodded. "Wind, Fire, Earth and Water. We're friends. Sort of."

A suspicion was making its way through Jack. "And what role do you have in this Spirits story?"

If possible, Elsa's expression grew even more distant. "They called me Fifth Spirit. I don't know exactly what that means, but Anna and I are a kind of link between their world and ours."

Jack thought that she couldn't be a Legend, at least not totally. She was too human.

Elsa looked him straight in the face. "Now it's your turn. I didn't drag you here to tell you the story of my life."

Jack woke up from his reasoning. "Ah, yeah. Uh. I wasn't born with powers, but I guess I'm like your friends."

Her eyes widened. "I didn't know there were other Spirits."

Oh, she had no idea. Even too many.

"Well, nice to meet you. Jack Frost. Now can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

Jack rubbed his thumb over a knot on his staff, bringing up confused and terrifying memories of the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow. "A few weeks ago we stumbled upon a weird place. There we've all had some crazy visions, but I…"

"Think you saw something real?"

Well, he very much hoped not, but Jack didn't express that opinion. "Yeah. You're the first person like me I've met here, aside from Rapunzel, but she's a different case."

"By the way, you also need to explain to me who she is."

"Rapunzel will do it herself. The point is," Jack mentally braced himself for disappointment, and more sleepless nights mulling over what he'd seen, "I was hoping you could help me find the truth."

Something in Elsa's expression changed immediately. She thought for a long minute before answering. "I think I can. I know a place where you might find what you're looking for."

Jack's mood lifted significantly. "Great, I'm gonna tell the others to get ready to leave."

"No," she stopped him. "We'll go alone."

Jack stared at her in confusion. Elsa shrugged. "Spirit stuff. You'll understand later."

He could have insisted, Jack thought. He could have explained to her that they'd seen and experienced all sorts of things since he'd dropped into Corona without explanation. That he didn't like the idea of facing the true meaning of his vision without them.

But there was something, the same thing that had prevented him from telling his friends what he'd seen, that prompted him to keep silent this time too.

"Okay. Let's go back to the others."

They found everyone sitting on the sofas and armchairs, Merida and Rapunzel wearing expensive long nightgowns, Hiccup in a shirt and pants salvaged perhaps from a butler's uniform. Anna had undone her bun, and Rapunzel was brushing her hair, sitting cross-legged. By the way they were chatting, Jack guessed the two had immediately clicked.

Elsa stood next to the chairs, and he followed suit, not wanting to get scolded for dirtying stuff. He saw Olaf the snowman nearby, who was comparing the branch he had fought with to Jack's staff.

"So," Anna began with a smirk. "The princes and princesses of Norland, huh?"

Rapunzel blushed. "Sorry, we didn't want people to know we came here."

"And you thought you'd go unnoticed?" Elsa objected with an incredulous half laugh, pointing to her hair.

Anna stroked her freshly brushed locks. "Nevermind, what's with Cassandra? Who is this girl?"

Rapunzel started from the beginning: she told them about the Sundrop, about life at the tower, about Eugene, about Cassandra, about the Moonstone and about the invitation they had found by chance.

"When we knew she was coming to Arendelle for the coronation, we followed her. Unfortunately she managed to hold us back by enchanting the cake," she concluded sadly. "She must have slipped the tablets and the stone into it during the reception, when no one was looking."

"Don't worry," Hiccup said. "We'll go right back to Corona, find the stolen books and send them back to you."

Jack raised a hand. "Actually, there's a place I need to go with Elsa before we leave."

"Sure, we can make a detour," Rapunzel said. "Where are we going?"

Jack knelt in front of her. "Sorry, Punz, but I have to go alone. It's Legends business, and you're in desperate need of a long nap."

"No, I can go," she protested, but Jack could feel the yawn she was heroically holding back.

"I'll bring him back to you safely," Elsa kindly assured her.

Anna looked at her. "You can trust my sister, she's strong!"

Rapunzel bit her lip, but finally conceded an "Okay." Jack realized that he had been holding his breath.

"Oi, wait a second, ye won't go anywhere without us!" Merida said. "Are ye really going to leave us twiddling our thumbs?"

Hiccup said nothing, but his displeased face was worth a thousand words.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll need some help handling the guests as soon as we go outside. Someone was slightly injured in the evacuation, and many others will wanna be reassured," Anna said.

Her speech finally seemed to convince everyone.

"Before we go there's one last thing to do," Elsa said, eyeing Jack with the exact same critical expression as Olaf's. "I'm not bringing you anywhere dressed like this."

Jack looked down at his cake-smeared clothes and suddenly felt guilty. "I'm sorry, Rapunzel. It took you days to sew them, and I managed to ruin them in half a day…"

"Aye, I don't think they can be salvaged," Merida commented, snorting an inelegant laugh.

"Don't worry, I figured there wouldn't be another chance to wear them," Rapunzel sighed.

Elsa held out a hand to him, palm up. "May I?"

"Uh, sure?"

She made complicated movements with her arms, as puffs of snow and ice crystals surrounded Jack, and he whipped around to see what was happening, slightly apprehensive.

A cold breeze ruffled his hair and billowed the soft cloak that draped over his shoulders. Embroideries of frost glittered on his new blue knee-length tunic.

Jack looked at his wrists. No seams or edges, like the clothes Elsa wore. Huh.

The others gaped, and darted from their seats to get a closer look at Jack, making him feel self-conscious.

"It's cold, but it doesn't melt. Is it permanent ice?" Hiccup asked with a low whistle as he lifted the hem of the cloak, where it changed from white to almost transparent.

"Yep."

Rapunzel, who was the only one left sitting, had eyes that sparkled with interest. "Jack, can you make clothes too?"

"I don't know," he said. "I've never tried."

"Now we can go," Elsa said, satisfied. "We'll be back in a couple of hours."

They exchanged a few goodbyes and many recommendations, mostly addressed to Jack, who left the living room together with Elsa, crossed other endless corridors covered with tapestries and emerged from the base of a tower onto a tiny pebble beach.

Before them, the sea stretched along the horizon, barely rough. The breeze blew in Jack's face, and he inhaled the crisp Arendelle air, glad to be out of the castle, a little stuffy for his liking. He looked up at the blue sky, and the last traces of sickness were swept away.

"I can fly, but what about you?" he asked Elsa.

She pointed to a spot where tiny waves were rippling, and in no time Jack was watching Elsa stroke the muzzle of a magnificent water horse.

The spirit shook the droplets its mane was made of and looked at Jack, who had a hard time ignoring the urge to bow. "Okay, this is cool."

"Think you can keep up with us?" Elsa said in a defiant tone, showing a playful expression much different from the serious one she'd kept until now.

The question piqued Jack's competitiveness, prompting him to call the wind to him and soar in mid-air. "Where are we headed?"

"Straight north."

"Then I'll see you later, Your Highness!" Jack exclaimed, and let himself be swept away by the sea air currents, powerful enough to throw him at breakneck speed, making him laugh.

Before he'd left the walls of Arendelle behind him, however, he heard the peculiar sound of water hooves pounding the sea surface, kicking up sprays and foam. Elsa's face, sitting casually on the horse, was relaxed in a smile so broad that her blue eyes narrowed. She met Jack's half-astonished, half-impressed gaze, and she burst out laughing.

A full-blown contest ensued: Jack had often flown over all the world's oceans, but never while competing with a horse, and the horse in question galloped faster than any normal animal. Elsa indulged in the occasional playful comment, so he responded by throwing water at her.

They ran along high waves, skirted populated and unpopulated shores, greeted seagulls and whales, and finally came in sight of a glacier with lead-gray peaks and blinding snow.

Jack landed on the slippery bank. "What place is this?"

Elsa dismounted from the Nokk, she gave it one last pat and watched it dive into the depths from which it came. She then addressed the towering wall of ice before them. "Ahtohallan."

Giving no further explanation, she led Jack to a crack in the ice that revealed the opening to a dark cave. Inside, the howling wind almost sounded like distant music, and the walls of the narrow tunnel they were walking in seemed to glow from the inside. 

Jack had never heard of Ahtohallan, but in three hundred years he had never taken much interest in the business of other Legends, so he couldn't know if it was a well-known place, yet he had no doubt that pure magic pervaded the glacier.

They found themselves at a crossroads, divided between two seemingly identical tunnels.

"Weird," Elsa said, suddenly uncertain. "It wasn't like that last time."

"Well, you're the expert. Which way?"

"You decide: your truth, your choice."

Jack frowned in a way he was sure reminded a lot of Merida's pensive faces. "What if we get lost? I have the feeling that Anna won't hesitate to put me in the stocks if we're late."

"Trust your instinct," Elsa insisted. "Listen to the ice. Follow its voice."

Jack thought it sounded like a bunch of cheap inspirational quotes, but he decided to listen to her and concentrated on the vague melody made by the wind as it passed through the tunnels.

Jack.

He jumped. He knew that voice. He could never forget it.

It was her.

His heart immediately swelled with emotion. The tone of the wind was welcoming, warm, loving. He wished he could hug it, or even just touch it.

Jack.

The voice came distinctly from the tunnel to the left, but Jack's feet suddenly weighted like mountains. He hesitated.

"What is it? Can't you hear anything?" Elsa whispered.

He shook his head, the lump in his throat burning. "No, it's just… Last time I blindly followed a disembodied voice, it didn't go well."

Yup. Black cages, piles of gold and ivory boxes, broken eggs and guilt. Really bad memories.

"If you want to understand what you saw, you have to decide now. Or we can always leave."

Jack.

"...No. This way."

The hallway glowed teal, pink, and indigo. Jack traced the cold wall and smiled to himself, remembering Nord's lab. He missed dropping in to see what he, the elves and yetis were up to.

Shoot.

The room they arrived in was a large rectangular hall, with pillars of carved ice framing a sort of central aisle. Elsa and Jack walked silently to the door.

Only it wasn't a door, at least not literally. Rather, it looked more like a piece of aurora borealis plucked from the sky and placed on the wall, beyond which nothing but light could be seen.

Instinctively, Jack touched the opening, before even thinking that it could be dangerous, or that it would be disrespectful because it was up to Elsa, but the aurora still separated into millions of crystals that dispersed in the next room.

They entered a completely dark space, as opposed to its entrance, so dark that Jack couldn't figure out its size, or even if they were still in the same world. His feet touched an invisible floor, so at least it had some concreteness.

The crystals gathered at a spot on the ground nearby, forming four diamond shapes of various shades of purple and blue. Elsa placed herself in its center with sure steps, before turning around, smiling again, and extending a hand to Jack.

With no doubts left, he grabbed it. Elsa then sang four notes that Jack was sure were a call, and like a firework, the symbol shot up, until it popped and lit up the ceiling revealing its domed shape. Elsa closed her eyes, still holding his hand, and with a sweep of her free arm, the humidity around them thickened into columns of mist.

While she was busy with that, Jack shifted his gaze to the dome, and almost let go of her hand. His mind barely registered that Elsa was singing about rivers and memories.

His sister!

Light brown eyes, long bangs, a mole on the cheek… That was his little sister!

The reflection-like image in the ice smiled first at him, then at a second figure Jack recognized as his mother. He felt lost like a child.

Like a body of water rippling with waves, the faces disappeared. He understood they were just visions drawn from his memories, so it didn't bother him too much to see them disappear.

He returned his focus to the mist. As the last note of Elsa's lullaby echoed through the dome, the fog solidified into several snow statues scattered all around them.

Elsa let go of Jack's hand and opened her eyes again. Even the wind had ceased.

Jack approached a group of statues, drawn by their familiar features and slow-motion movements. He didn't understand how the moments to be represented had been chosen, but as he passed them one by one he thought that he didn't really care.

The statues were shaped like everyone Jack had ever cared about, enacting various more or less important memories. He saw the Guardians, who made his heart ache with nostalgia, he saw the Burgess children having a snowball fight, he saw various versions of his friends from Corona…

"Everything okay?" Elsa said, startling him. He had forgotten that she was there too, in that bubble of evanescent memories.

"Huh?"

Elsa looked at a statue of Rapunzel making a portrait of him. "It seemed like… Nevermind."

He was about to ask what was wrong with her, but a name resonated in the dome.

Jack Frost.

His eyes widened. That wasn't his sister's voice. He had only heard it once, but it was still etched in his memory forever. He had coveted it for centuries, after all.

He turned away from the snow statues and followed the voice with Elsa close behind.

"Jack, wait, where are you going?"

"The Moon," he replied, not looking at her, probably without being of any help. "It's talking to me again."

He ran towards the wall, from which the voice came, and the ice fanned out as if to invite him to pass.

"Wait, Jack. Jack!"

But he had already entered the hidden tunnel, mesmerized by the echo of the voice that still filled his ears. The sound of Elsa's hurried steps sounded muffled.

The corridor ended in another large hall, onto which a black abyss opened. Jack scanned its depths without seeing the bottom of it.

"Where we are?" he asked Elsa, who joined him at that moment.

"We're above the center of Ahtohallan. It's really cold down there, and if I'm saying it…"

"The voice comes from there."

Before he could do anything, Elsa firmly grabbed his shoulder. "You can't go, you'll freeze."

Ridiculous, Jack thought. "Didn't you say I'd have some answers here?"

"Yes, because I thought you'd find them in the statue room!" she said, exasperated. "Believe me, I've been there, and I almost didn't come back."

Jack gently removed her hand from his shoulder. "It's nice of you to worry, since we've known each other for less than two hours and everything, but you forget that I'm not human. It'll take more than a few degrees less to take me down."

"But…"

"Elsa." Jack flashed her the most calm expression he could manage. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

Luckily she didn't know him enough, because otherwise she would have immediately understood that was a big lie. Jack rarely knew what he was doing.

Elsa bit her fingernail in a most unregal tic, thoughtfully, but finally she sighed. "Be careful. If you feel like you've seen what you need, come right back up."

Jack winked at her. "Then I'm counting on you to help me, Your Highness."

He turned to face the pit, gripped the staff a little tighter, and after taking a deep breath, leapt into the void. The wind made the landing softer, slowing him once his feet were inches off the ground.

And the moment Jack hit it, everything went dark.

He craned his neck to look up, but he saw neither the edge nor the ceiling of the cave. It was as if they had never been there. 

He then studied the surrounding environment, equally black, and maybe it was due to Elsa's sudden absence, maybe due to the total darkness, but for the first time Jack was afraid.

If nothing else, he could sense the cold air lingering on his skin without covering it, so he really was out of danger, at least for now.

Jack took a few uncertain steps, feeling the bizarre sensation of walking in the void, until his eyes met a distant dot of light. He sped up until he was almost running, and soon realized that it wasn't a dot.

The Moon, full and clear, shone dimly in Ahtohallan's darkness, high enough that Jack couldn't touch it.

Jack Frost.

He gulped. Its voice was as low and commanding as he remembered it, but seeing the white orb gave him some comfort. It barely lit up the floor Jack stood on, and he looked down to see if he was walking on stone or land.

The reflection under him flickered hazily.

But Jack didn't have his eyes closed. Or a brown cape.

The staff slipped from his hand, as he fell backward gasping and felt his fingers slipping on what was undoubtedly thin ice.

Jack crawled his way back to look at the copy trapped beneath him. His heart was pounding in his chest so hard it felt like it wanted to escape his ribcage.

The reflection of the Moon surrounded his drowned body in a perfectly circular frame, and Jack knew what was about to happen.

He mentally readied himself to see the corpse revived and forged with new powers, but something else happened first.

A drop fell from the Moon, like a tear falling to the ground. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, Jack recognized the turquoise of the Moonstone as it passed straight through the ice in front of him and into the water.

"No…" he murmured in panic, helpless against the memory. "No!"

The body beneath him absorbed the Stone. His hair bleached to white. Jack felt nauseous.

He jumped up, shaking, but the vision unfolded without him being able to intervene.

The ice broke, and Jack Frost was born.

A whirlwind of visions and sounds engulfed him. He saw as many Stones as many times it had been given to the terrestrial world, as an aid, as a gift or as a curse. He saw people kill each other for it, steal it or lose it. He saw the Stone rejoin the Sundrop once or twice.

In the end, it always came back to the Moon.

The images started not making sense, transporting Jack to lost times and places, leaving him at the mercy of incomprehensible visions. Around him, the fabric of reality seemed to bend to Ahtohallan's will.

His heart was beating even faster, or maybe it had stopped altogether, he wasn't sure. The metallic flavor in his mouth tasted like pain. His body was tingling so much it hurt. Pure magic pervaded him.

He felt like he was about to fall.

"Jack," was the distant cry that revived him. "Come back here!"

It was different from the faceless voices that had guided him. It was there, in that exact moment, and it was real. Jack clung to it so as not to get overwhelmed.

He retrieved his staff, called the wind to him and let himself be thrown upwards without caring about ending up crushed on the ceiling of the cave. The air grabbed him and catapulted him at breakneck speed, to the edge of the abyss, where Elsa was kneeling.

As the wind released its grip on Jack and made him stagger, she scrambled to catch him before he fell face down onto the ice. "What…"

"Out," he exhaled. "Get me out of here."

Whether they had run or flown through the various rooms and tunnels back, Jack wasn't sure, but what mattered to him was that soon they were on the rocky shore, in the open air, where he could take in big breaths and drop to his knees on the pebbles.

He felt his chest, where his heart was, as if he could feel the Moonstone beating within him. Luckily he didn't sense anything but his imagination, or he would really have lost his mind.

Well, now the vision in the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow made sense. Whether he liked it or not.

Beside him, Elsa crouched worriedly. She made to touch Jack's back, but she hesitated and finally withdrew her hand.

"You haven't seen anything nice, have you?"

He just shook his head.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She reminded him of Tooth. Maybe that was why he gave in. "I'm plan B. I have a Moonstone, and I was sent in case anything happens to Cassandra's. So Rapunzel can still fulfill her destiny."

He looked with hatred at the pale orb suspended among the clouds of day, cursing the Moon and himself for daring to think that his arrival in Corona had been accidental. Gritting his teeth made the pain in his chest seem a little less terrible.

Elsa sat adjusting her skirt. "Forgive me, I don't understand. Are there two Stones?"

"It's actually the same."

"Jack, speak more clearly."

And welcome back to the queen tone.

"You wouldn't believe me, it's too absurd." He smiled at her bitterly. "I haven't even told the others."

"I've met trolls, I'm friends with Spirits, and we just saw your memories manifest in the form of snow statues," Elsa contradicted him. "I think I can handle some absurdity."

Jack thought about it, while the waves breaking on the black shore filled the silence. All in all, at worst she would have laughed at him. Might as well talk.

"I'm from the future."

Jack counted eleven waves and four seagull noises before Elsa spoke again. "Wait, what?"

"Now don't ask me if I know what will happen at the end of this mess, my future is far too distant and I'd never heard of Drops or Stones before I happened here."

"How distant?"

"I don't know. A few centuries, I guess. I'm not a history book."

Elsa's gaze was lost towards the horizon for a few more moments. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Well, what do you say?"

"Tell the others."

He raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect such a prompt response.

"They'll believe you. I've seen how you fight, how you talk to each other. They trust you," Elsa explained.

Jack was forced to avoid her determined expression. The idea of telling his friends all about him scared him, but Elsa's confidence was so infectious that he couldn't help but feel a spark of hope shine in him.

And in daylight, the Moon appeared insignificant.

"Maybe."

~

This was not how Merida expected the mission to go.

She had braced herself for a long, arduous day of bowing and dancing and whispering, and yet here she was, in her nightgown and silk robe, doing her best to channel the Elinor hiding within her.

Anna had said she needed a hand keeping the other guests at bay, and again, Merida had pictured herself having boring conversations about the weather with the nobles.

And yet.

"It's a conspiracy against my life, I tell you!" the Duke of Weselton bellowed. Merida no longer even pretended to listen to him. "This is not the first time that the royal family of Arendelle has attacked my person!"

That man was worse than a drunk clan chief. He'd clung to her raving about traps and assassins, and she couldn't keep him out of her way.

"Fo' the last time, Am telling ye that Cassandra just wanted to distract us. She wasn't after ye personally," Merida said flatly, offering water to a couple. She saw from the corner of her eye that Anna was waving for her to come closer.

She made a step in that direction, but the Duke ran in front of her, blocking her way. "Where are you going? I'm not letting Queen Anna get away with it again!"

Merida fought the urge to nudge him hard and leave him in pain, and she flashed a smile that she hoped looked calm and polite. "Yer Grace, why donnye ask Kai to show ye the statue in the central plaza, to distract ye?"

The Duke straightened his spectacles. "I don't think this is the time for—"

"I hear it's pure gold," Merida added casually.

The duke fell silent, darted his eyes to the castle and licked his lips. "I suppose a change of environment might do me some good."

"Go, go," she said, keeping her fake polite expression on, but she stuck her tongue out at him as soon as he turned away.

She joined Anna towards the front doors, or rather, the empty arch that was left of them. The pieces of wood, now useless, had been taken away.

She saw Anna plotting something with Hiccup over a table full of messy plans and papers.

"And if we increase the weight at the top… Ah, thank you," he said when Merida gave him some water.

"I saw how you got rid of the Duke of Weselton," Anna said. "Good job, I couldn't have made it," she laughed.

"Merida can say she doesn't like being a princess as much as she wants to, but she's really good with people," Hiccup commented.

Rapunzel, who had recovered from her magic trick and had already finished handing out snacks, nodded vigorously. "Put her in a room of angry people, and she'll calm things down. She broke up a tavern fight once, and by the end they were all singing and drinking with her as if they'd known each other forever. Sooner or later I'll find out her secret."

"Jus' talked to them," Merida muttered, slightly embarrassed, but also proud of the compliments.

"Hey, you're good too, you doubt yourself too much," Hiccup said.

"Look who's talking!" Rapunzel exclaimed. "Mr. Don't-call-me-Chief. I've heard you with Jack earlier, you know."

"Are you a royal too?" Anna asked, curious.

"My father is the chief of our tribe," Hiccup replied neutrally. He'd subtly removed himself from the conversation, naming his father and not himself. Typical. "So, what do you think of my idea for the new doors?"

And here he was changing the subject. Merida rolled her eyes so hard they almost went around backwards.

Anna and Hiccup were still discussing the work to be done, when the blond man who had been sitting in the front row at the coronation approached them. He had a youthful face and arms of a working man, and he, too, looked uncomfortable in his clothes. Merida understood him.

"Hon—Anna," he said. "Where did Elsa go?"

"She left, but she should be back soon. Spirit emergency. Spiritual? Spiritic?" Anna shrugged. "Anyway, this is Rapunzel, Merida and Hiccup. They helped us with the cake disaster. Guys, this is Kristoff, my fiancé."

Merida noticed Rapunzel's eyes darting to Anna's left hand, specifically to a pretty ring with an orange gem that she hadn't noticed before. She wondered if Rapunzel was thinking about Eugene's failed proposal attempts: Merida had accidentally witnessed the second one, and it had been nothing short of embarrassing, not to mention painful. For all three of them.

They exchanged the usual polite greetings, but it was clear that Kristoff's attention was elsewhere.

"Honeymaren and Yelena are tending to the wounded," he explained after leaning his back against the nearest wall with a tired sigh.

"Nothing serious, I hope," Anna was immediately concerned.

"No, just a few bruises or scrapes. People were panicking during the evacuation and didn't notice where they were stepping."

He used a tone for "people" that implied some sort of distance.

Merida wondered who exactly was that man with his hair slicked back and velvet trousers ruined at the knees. He was dressed like a nobleman, but he didn't really look like one.

"Look!" Rapunzel exclaimed while pointing to the gates. "They're back!"

They ran to meet Elsa and Jack, but it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. Jack was keeping his head down, and his fists clenched. It was an attitude that Merida had learned to recognize and fear, and her mind formulated a thousand hypotheses about what had happened, one more catastrophic than the other.

However, the quickest reaction was unexpectedly from Hiccup, who stood right in front of Elsa with his mouth frowning and his eyes lit in cold resolution: an expression he usually reserved for Toothless when he licked his face one too many times.

"What happened?" he asked her in a tone that allowed no hesitation or lies.

Merida thought that in Elsa's place she would have been terrified, and would have blurted out anything, but she had to admit that Elsa showed an admirable dose of firmness, because instead of lowering her head and speaking in a small voice, she lifted her chin and explained the situation without letting herself be intimidated.

"Jack had the answers he was looking for, but the truth is never easy to accept," she said. She took a step back and gave way to Jack. "He'll explain it to you."

"Are you okay?" Rapunzel asked as she worriedly rubbed a hand on his arm, but Jack pulled away from her touch and gave her a weary smile.

"Let's just say it wasn't the most fun trip ever," he said with a smirk. "But now we can go."

Elsa gave him a stern look. Jack ignored her like he always turned a blind eye to Rapunzel's scolding faces. "I'll tell you everything, but not now. It's a long way back to Corona, I'd rather talk to you while we're on the ship."

That cautious diplomacy alarmed Merida even more. What had those two been up to?

But Jack seemed fine, physically speaking, and his idea sounded reasonable to everyone, so they took another hour to get ready, make sure all the guests were doing fine, and head down to the docks in a rather tense silence.

"We'll have Cass' stolen books shipped to you as soon as we find them," Rapunzel swore. As they'd suspected, three volumes on magic were missing from Kai's report.

"Oh, don't worry about a few books," Anna said. "But when you do, I'd like you to bring them to me personally. Consider yourselves invited to Arendelle anytime!"

And in true Rapunzel fashion, the queen hugged them all.

Or rather, she hugged three of them, because Merida saw that Elsa and Jack had moved far enough for their conversation not to be overheard. From the way she smiled encouragingly and he nodded sadly every now and then, Merida guessed it had something to do with their mysterious journey.

"Thanks again for not putting us in jail," Hiccup said.

"Speaking from experience?" Anna joked, before noticing their expressions of suffering mixed with resignation. "Oh boy. You are speaking from experience."

"Well, have a safe journey back home," Kristoff wished them. In the end Merida hadn't held back her curiosity, and she'd asked him about his origins, thus discovering that he was an ice merchant.

"Goodbye, weird magical kids! Don't let the sea monsters eat you!" Olaf added cheerfully, sending rather mixed messages.

They continued to wave even when they were aboard their sailing vessel. Merida thought she would miss that group just as wacky as theirs.

They lowered their arms when they became a distant, indistinct speck, after which Jack didn't wait to announce, "I'm getting some air. We'll talk later," and flew to the top of the mainmast, all alone.

"Air? We've been out fo' hours," Merida grumbled.

"Whatever he saw or did must have upset him," Hiccup said. "I'm afraid he's going to put this conversation off for quite a while."

"Merida," Rapunzel said, "about what happened today with Cass…"

"I tried t'make her give up. It didny work," she cut short, her mouth suddenly feeling dry. Now that had been a complete failure, she thought with searing disappointment. Going to Arendelle had been useless.

"I wanted to thank you for stopping her before she entered the castle," Rapunzel said sincerely instead. "If you hadn't held her, we probably wouldn't have noticed anything."

She took Merida's hand with such affection, with such genuine gratitude, that she had no choice but to let out a big sob and throw herself into Rapunzel's arms. She heard a pat on her back, undoubtedly from Hiccup.

"Please never feel guilty about this again," Rapunzel continued. "It's water under the bridge, and the important thing is that you're back."

Hiccup sighed. "Now we just have to get Jack to tell us what happened, hoping it's not yet another complication."

Merida glanced sadly at the mainmast, then at Rapunzel. "Ye should try talkin' to him first, by yerself. Ye know how Jack is, he's more comfortable talking to one person at a time."

Rapunzel twisted a golden strand around her finger. "I'll try, but not before we get home. I want to give him a few hours to think." She also sighed. "We made a deal, before leaving for the Dark Kingdom, for this very reason. Secrets just hurt us."

"Everything will be alright. Eventually," Merida said.

And they stayed silent for a while longer, looking at the wind-driven clouds that stretched out on the horizon and the trail of white foam that followed the vessel like the train of a water dress, lost in their own thoughts, but with hands clasped in each other's.