A Saga Of Ice And Fire

Chapter Twenty-Two - As Cold As Ice

It was probably nothing but Hiccup felt a funny feeling in his stomach as he made his way over to the ribbon and picked it up . As he scoured the area around him with the ribbon in hand, at first glance, he didn't notice anything but then, he caught sight of two tiny specks in the distance , running along the shoreline , away from the castle and closer to the hill that swerved out of sight bordering the forest line of the crown wood.

Squinting to better see against the overcast daylight, he recognised a tuft of bright red hair among the two specks to be that of Anna's and she seemed to be chasing the other girl with her. Hiccup felt his body relax down , almost as if it'd let out a sigh of relief at having seen Anna running around. The Princess' playmate , however, was not instantly recognisable as it didn't appear to be Elsa-Hiccup couldn't see any silver blonde hair anywhere. Eitherway, if anyone knew about Elsa's whereabouts, it had to be her sister. If Anna didn't know where the elder princess was, there was no chance anyone else did apart from maybe the king and queen.

Trying to ignore the way the frigid early December air stung his skin , Hiccup trudged along the snow laden banks of the frozen Fjord . He could hear the soft crunch of grey weeds beneath his boots as he made his way toward the two specks in the distance leaving behind shallow, two inch deep trenches in his wake.

As the two specks began to grow closer and closer with each step , Hiccup was now able to make out the faces of the two girls and as he was now just over twenty feet away, he saw Anna bolting over the ice while the other girl stopped dead in her tracks by the shore line , almost as if there was some rope holding her back. Anna , now standing a few dozen feet away from the shoreline, turned back and stuck began laughing at the girl.

" No! Princess Anna ! " Hiccup heard the other girl call out, her voice sounding almost fearful for some reason.
"Princess, come back! Mama said we shouldn't go onto the ice! It's not safe!"

Anna seemed to wave her off, giggling rambunctiously but barely a second later, when she seemed to take a step forward towards the shore, a bone thrummimg crack ripped through the air and Anna was suddenly frozen in place, the laughter seemingly vanishing in the split second to be replaced by a sudden, frightened shriek .

"ANNA! " Hiccup called out tightly , his voice cracking as he raced towards the shoreline to join the other girl.

As if in response, a low rumble thrummed through the winter air as the ice blanketing the salt water creaked , like a dozen crickets had all cried out at once, the haunting echo lingering for several moments as he hurried over to the water's edge .He'd never seen Anna look more frightened than she did at that moment, standing their on the icy plane with her arms outstretched to her sides to try and keep balance , almost as if she'd been turned into a frozen statue or something herself.

"W-We were just playing tag !" the other girl with the bushy brown hair wailed ,her brown eyes flitting fearfully between Anna and Hiccup. " The Princess ran onto the ice to get away from me and now the ice's breaking! "

Hiccup recognised the girl to be Edna, daughter of one of the cooks, Olina ; he'd seen Anna often playing with her when he and Elsa were busy with their classes and she didn't look much older than Anna herself. He knew the more logical thing to do was to go get help but he didn't know if the ice would hold long enough and he had no intention of testing such a theory out given the current situation.

"Hey, just calm down. It-it's gonna be alright. " He said out aloud, his own voice sounding panicked. " It'll be cold . . . . well, freezing cold , to be more specific, but it's just water and you can just—"

"I can't swim, Hiccup!" Anna shrieked over him, her voice cracking , shrill .
" I-I can't swim!"

It was only now that the realization hit him and he felt his body grow vaguely heavier for some reason , as if it was suddenly weighing down on his inner organs, making him much more aware of the way his heart beat . And he knew that the water below the ice where Anna stood was had to be too deep for someone their age to stand up in.