Agnarr & Iduna: A Short Story

Part 2

A procession of horses and covered wagons makes its way through the sun-covered mountains. There's six horses with just riders and no wagons and two pairs of horses pulling covered wagons. Each rider is in soldier's gear, each armed with a sword, and on with a rifle, in addition to his own sword. There is one horse, however, that carries a big sled, like the kind from Frozen. Agnarr and Iduna are in it, neither talking, but both looking around at the beauty of the landscape. Cliffs are in the distance in seemingly every direction. The sky is a bright blue, and the sun hangs almost directly overhead.
Iduna, thinking and hoping that Agnarr is not looking, puts her feet up on the front of the sled, taking a moment to stretch. Agnarr catches this out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, whoa, whoa, what are you doing??" Agnarr asks, agitated. "This is fresh lacquer. What, were you raised in a barn?"
"Do I have to answer that?" Iduna responds slyly, implying she was raised in a barn.
"Sorry," Agnarr says sheepishly, sort of slinking. "You can put your feet up if you want to. I just have an appreciation for stuff that people take their time to make."
"That sounds like a good trait for a king," Iduna comments.
"I hope so," Agnarr says.
"Sire!" The soldier in front calls. "We're here! Maybe! We're not really sure. You and the girl had better come take a look at this."
Agnarr and Iduna look at each other, as if for a final time, and spring out of the sled, dashing to the front of the procession. Instead of seeing a forest, they see a large mist, going apparently infinitely to the right and left, and at least a hundred feet high.
"Whoa," Agnarr says lowly.
"You can say that again," Iduna says, stepping ahead and putting her hand out to touch the mist. She feels a slow vibrating on her hand and water droplets dancing around it. Farther, she puts out her hand, until she feels her hand repelled like a magnet.
"Iduna, be careful," Agnarr warns.
"Relax," Iduna says, turning to face Agnarr and putting her hand into the mist like it is a tree to lean against. "It's mist. Water. How unsafe can it BE—!!"
As Iduna leaned into the mist, once she was close, it threw her back about five feet. Agnarr and the closest soldier bring her to her feet.
"Are you okay?!" Agnarr asks worriedly. "Are you hurt?!"
"I'm fine," Iduna replies, brushing herself off. She looks at the mist again. "I'm... fine. It was like I was a magnet. It threw me back."
"I'll be the judge of that," a soldier says, charging at the mist. It does not end well, as he is thrown ten feet back and helped up by the soldiers.
"Is there a way around it?" Agnarr asks one soldier, the captain.
"I don't believe so, sire," the captain replies. "I'm sorry. I've never seen anything like this."
Agnarr looks at the mist with a look of extreme worry on his face. "There's got to be a way in!" He yells desperately.
"Agnarr?" Iduna asks comfortingly, putting her hand on Agnarr's shoulder. "It's okay. If there's not a way in, there's not a way in."
"No, it's not okay, there's GOT to be a way in!!" Agnarr says.
"How can there be?" Iduna reasons. "I was thrown back, and so was that guy."
"I'm okay, by the way!" The just-mentioned soldier says.
"If we can't get in," Iduna continues, "who can?"
Agnarr turns to the captain. "Do we have any kind of technology? A catapult? A battering ram? Is there a ceiling to the mist? I don't care about it for me, I care about it for Iduna! Her family's in there!"
Iduna's eyes fill with tears at Agnarr's last comment, remembering her family.
"We'd have to go back to Arendelle for supplies..." the captain begins, but does not finish.
"Do it!" Agnarr commands. "Anything! Anything for the girl who saved me!"
"It will be some time to build the machines and then some time to bring them up, but we will do what we can," the captain tells Agnarr and Iduna.
As Iduna looks at the mist longingly and just barely keeps herself from crying, Agnarr hugs the girl. Iduna cries into Agnarr's shoulder, wanting to see her family but knowing she cannot. She does not even know if they are alive, given the war inside the mist. She wants to see them, she wants to be with them, and she wants that peace of mind.
"It's gonna be okay," Agnarr whispers to Iduna.
"And what if it's not?" Iduna sobs.
"It will be," Agnarr says. "I promise."