Northuldra Nights with Maren: I’m Worried About Anna

By Maren, Head Liaison of Northuldra-Arendelle Relations

I was really shocked when Anna turned up at the embassy in the early hours of the morning, hair dishevelled and eyes terrified and distressed. She hadn’t even changed out of her nightclothes, and Kristoff’s coat was on her.

She’d had a really awful dream, and it seemed vivid enough that she thought it was something that was actually happening, or could happen. Anna’s already shared this with you in her column for this paper, but in any case I took her up to my loft quarters and did what I could to comfort her. I was surprised by how shaken she was.

She seemed to appreciate my company, so I told her not to bother going back to the palace, not when we’d see dawn in just a few more hours. That was the first time she’d ever slept on my bed, after writing her column before she forgot her nightmare. I’m a private person but I was more than happy to let her stay. She’d seen my place before anyway; it was she who appointed my loft apartment for me when I moved to Arendelle and took up residence on the upper level of our small embassy.

Several weeks have passed since she came to my home, and I’m still feeling worried about her. Her nightmare hasn’t affected her daily work: we still get so much done together. We have our daily briefings and long talks into lunchtime, and we’re always supporting each other during our parliamentary debates in the House of Ministers and House of Jarls. She’s always sending me notes and scribbles, some related to work, others more trivial.

It’s just that we haven’t mentioned that night, and I can sense that we both want to talk about it… but don’t know how. It’s not like it’s a secret – I picked up a copy of The Arendelle Guardian a couple of days after that incident and saw what she’d written for all of the public to read: her dream about Elsa being burnt at the stake by a fanatical family called the Mundilfaris. Her confession about seeking me out. That matched with what told me that night: that she’s made enemies of a force that hates Northuldra and has been around for a very long time.

On one of my visits to the palace I headed to the library and did some digging around: the Mundilfari family is one of Arendelle’s most old school noble families, and if the records are accurate, was established long before the foundations of the kingdom. Their ancestors cut their teeth driving out nature spirits and the people that worshipped them from their lands. The chronicles refer to their earliest generation as Baltic crusaders.

No wonder why they turned their eyes to Northuldra long before Anna’s royal lineage was even around. The forest hums and vibrates with ancient magic. The very elemental spirits reside there. Its wellsprings of supernatural power have only multiplied since Elsa made it her new home.

I know that the queen is hiding a lot of pain and fear, and I’m not in the business of badgering her about why she feels easier to write something in her column instead of telling me in person. We all have our ways of coping. But if there are sinister forces at work in Arendelle, watching Anna and her movements, I have to accept that they’re probably watching me too. Then that is my business. I have to work up the guts to dive into this war that she’s fighting. I can’t help her the way I think Elsa wants me to if she doesn’t open her heart to me more.

I’m coming to see you, Anna. This time, I want you to tell me everything. I care too much about you to look away.

I love you and Elsa too much to stand on the sidelines.

Signing off,
Maren