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"Where … am I?"

Jaina didn't know if she'd spoken aloud or not. She lay in snow, barely feeling the cold dampness as pain lanced through her body. Sharpness in her back, a throbbing slash on her side and another on the opposite hip.

She stood on shaking legs, peering around at the forest. This was not where Jaina had intended to portal to.

Her boots crunched as she left a trail of blood in the snow. The stars above were unfamiliar to her, constellations she'd never seen before glimmering in the inky black.

It might be a hallucination from pain and blood loss, because she saw only one moon, a slim crescent rising above unfamiliar mountains.

She stumbled over a hidden root, catching herself on a tree, smearing the bark with her blood as her side and leg sent jolts of pain through her body. Every movement felt leaden at best, and agonizing at worst, the black-feathered arrow that had impaled her between spine and heart twinging with each jerk of her body.

Wrapping her arm around herself again, Jaina tugged at the remnants of her power, casting a spell to freeze the blood in her wound in a desperate attempt to staunch the flow. Time, she needed to buy herself time ... Time to get help, time…

An animal crossed her path and she squinted through blurring vision. It was just a deer, and it bounded away when it spotted her.

A road, a town, she needed to find something that wasn't Horde controlled. If they didn't try to kill her, they'd use her for ransom, and she would not allow that. Jaina could not allow that. She'd kill them before they had a chance to blink even if the effort meant she'd bleed to death. Every tree could hide a soldier or worse, a champion. And here she was, easy prey. A prize.

Stepping into a clearing, Jaina lifted her hand, wiping blood from her eyes as she sensed magic.

There was someone there, a human woman. She wore a velvet gown,silver stars and snowflakes glittering across midnight blue. As Jaina sagged against a tree, she watched the woman create trails of ice and snow in the air and draw sculptures up from the ground. A mage then. Jaina almost fell over from relief, stumbling even as she tried to move forward.

The woman's laugh was sweet and clear like bells, the sound trailing off as Jaina's legs gave out and she dropped to her knees, the impact jarring her wounds so suddenly that she cried out in pain.

The world swam, the woman's voice a distant echo as she rushed over. Jaina gasped, trying to speak, trying to see through the encroaching fog. "Champion … help…" And then she fell face first into the snow.

❄️

It was daylight when Jaina opened her eyes, the sun streaming through open curtains in a tall window. They were blue and white, made from some fabric that told Jaina their owner was a person of means.

She turned her head, startled when a woman's face leaned over and greeted her. It was a beautiful face, with high cheekbones, wide, sapphire eyes and lips like a rose bud.

Jaina was too tired and in too much pain to do anything but admire her. This must be the mage she'd found. Her gown seemed too thin for the cold, clinging to her like a second skin; but if the cold bothered her she did not let on.

Rubbing one hand across the other, the woman smiled. Kind, warm, if a little concerned and probably nervous. Jaina had fallen half dead at her feet, so she couldn't blame her for any of that.

Jaina made to sit up, but she was pushed back down, her side and back twinging at the motion.

"You're badly hurt, I don't think you should be moving around any time soon."

Her voice was pretty too, though her accent was strange.

"I have to…" Jaina squinted one eye shut, groaning. "…lay here, I think. But I must get a message to Stormwind. It's… it's imperative for the war effort. King Wrynn … must be…"

"Stormwind? King Wrynn?" The woman's brow furrowed. "War? What war?"

Jaina remembered the strange sky and the missing moon and closed her other eye. Faintly, she whispered, "Where am I?"

"You are in the Kingdom of Arendelle. I'm Queen Elsa."

"Lord Adm-Jaina … I'm Jaina." There was no Arendelle on Azeroth, nor a Queen named Elsa. There were two moons and a sky Jaina knew as well as she knew her own body, the constellations she'd watched and studied her whole life as familiar to her as a friend's smile. She briefly toyed with the thought that maybe this was Azshara's doing, somehow. Her eyes flitted to the window again. "This may seem an odd question, but what is this planet called?"

Elsa leaned back at the question, eyes blinking several times as if she were trying to understand something that made absolutely no sense. Again, Jaina couldn't blame her. She knew she sounded like a madwoman.

"Earth." Elsa said. She rose to her feet, elegant and regal and Jaina wondered how she'd ever mistaken her for a mere champion. "I shall retrieve the doctor."

Watched over by the Queen, Jaina thought. She must have made quite the impression, with her nearly dying and all.

❄️

Perhaps the woman was mad from blood loss and pain, Elsa wondered. Why else would this Jaina ask her such a strange question as to what the Earth was called. Of the planets there was Mercury and Venus, Mars, Ceres and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And the moons, she supposed. She paused in the hallway, wondering if Jaina was some kind of visitor.

There was something different about her. About the wounds she'd watched the doctor treat and the strange, foul arrow that he'd removed. There was something in Jaina's blood that sang to Elsa's, a power there that was completely unfamiliar and haunting and yet comforting. Yet the blood was red, the body human. Elsa found her face warming at the thought of that body.

She looked down at her hands, then back towards the door, behind which Jaina lay. Jaina spoke of wars and kingdoms that did not exist, and as she'd been treated she'd whispered and moaned things that made even less sense than anything else.

What was a Sylvanas? A Horde? An Old God? There was only one God, outside of ancient myth.

"Elsa?" Anna touched her elbow, and Elsa started.

"Yes?"

"Is she awake?"

Snapping out of it, Elsa started to walk. "Yes, she just woke up. I was getting the doctor."

Anna nodded, falling into step beside her sister. Elsa instantly felt at ease. All the fits and starts and bumps and hills to climb over the past five years had made their bond stronger.

"Kind of strange, isn't it?" Anna asked. "Fifth anniversary of your coronation is coming up and this woman kind of falls out of the sky. Like magic!"

"She didn't fall out of the sky, Anna," Elsa laughed, even if she couldn't be entirely sure that Anna was wrong. "But you're right, there is something magical about her. I can … feel it. Like a pulse around her. It's faint, but it's there."

Elsa had a million questions for Jaina, nearly as many as she had about herself. None of her books had been able to tell her very much about herself or how the magic of the world worked, and she'd traveled several times in vain efforts to find out more. While she might be confident in her skill now, Elsa still had that need to know and a fear deep in the pit of her stomach that one day her skill and control would fail her and she'd once again hurt someone she loved.

Anna's hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present, and she looked down into concerned green eyes. "You went away again. Are you okay?"

"I … yes, I think so." Elsa frowned. Sometimes she got lost in her thoughts as they spiraled over and into themselves like a mental maze and it took Anna or Olaf to snap her back to the present. Fortunately, it rarely happened when she was holding court.

At least not any more.

"I'll get the doctor," Anna decided. She added, knowingly, "You can save your questions for when that woman isn't at death's door."

Elsa gave her a grateful smile.

"What would you do without me?" Anna said, spinning and starting to walk away.

"Have peace and quiet," Elsa called out, before folding her arms over her stomach and walking to a hall window. The sky had grown overcast in the past few minutes and Elsa could feel the pending storm. She put a hand on the window, considering whether to allow it to happen or not.

There was a balance she had to strike, when it came to nature. Not cold enough, or not enough snow, and it could cause as many problems as a particularly harsh winter. And blizzards; if Elsa held back too many of them, she risked creating those harsh winters she wanted to avoid. She had personal experience with the rage of winter when it was held back too long, and winter? Liked to overcompensate.

This storm spoke to her as her power caressed it; a few nights of snow, some light wind. Pleasant nights in front of the fireplace at worst.

Turning from the window, she watched as Anna and Arendelle's bushy bearded doctor rushed past. Curiosity warred with propriety and won, and Elsa followed them, lingering in the doorway.

Despite her command not to, Jaina was sitting up, smiling sadly at a chubby little girl who'd wandered in and climbed onto her bed.

"Iduna!" Anna put her hands on her hips. "The nice lady needs to rest."

Iduna, barely more than two and with her father's golden hair and mother's green eyes and ruddy cheeks, grinned at them.

"I don't mind," Jaina assured them, looking at the girl with an expression so sad it almost broke Elsa's heart. "I love children."

"She can visit you as much as she wants," Anna said, picking Iduna up. "Once you're not at risk of pulling out your stitches."

"That's right," Elsa agreed, smiling proudly at Anna, before her eyes slid back to Jaina's face. "She's a handful, too much like her mother."

Jaina looked between her and Anna. "Sisters?"

"Yep!" Anna bounced Iduna on her hip, then shifted from foot to foot as a telltale sign of her own inability to stay still. It was an endearing trait. Most of the time.

Elsa sighed, then gestured at the doctor almost helplessly as he looked Jaina over.

"You're healing remarkably fast," the doctor said. "At this rate you'll have healed the worst of it in a matter of weeks, but that arrow'll leave a scar."

Throat bobbing, Elsa asked. "How is that possible?"

"Beats me." The doctor shrugged. He gently pushed Jaina back down. "Just stay in bed for the next couple of days."

He stood and pointed at Elsa, "And you, your majesty, try not to hover."

"I don't hover."

"Remember when Iduna had the chickenpox?" Anna chimed in helpfully.

"And when Princess Anna broke her leg," The doctor added, closing his bag.

"Doctor Hynynen," Elsa said, lifting her chin high. "I do not hover."

He just flashed a smile at her, bowed his head, and made his exit.

Anna put her hand to one side of her mouth as if to mask her voice from her sister. "She does."

"I can't think of better company," Jaina said, looking at Elsa. "But you should see to your country, your majesty."

"Call me Elsa."

Jaina frowned, an expression that immediately made Elsa feel on edge. There were lines around Jaina's eyes, and weight on her shoulders that even Elsa could feel.

Her eyes fell to where Jaina's clothing had been discarded. The formal, military cut of the robes. The staff that lay propped up against the wall near the door. Jaina was looking at her when she returned her gaze to the woman, and she quirked her brow at her.

Anna seemed to catch Elsa's subtle cue, and quickly slipped out with Iduna. Elsa closed the door behind her, and casually picked up the staff.

"Careful with that," Jaina jerked forward, then hissed in pain, hand over her stomach..

"A walking staff?" Power thrummed through it, Elsa's magic cracking in her veins like ice in a river in response. She set it back down.

"It's a lot … more than a walking staff." And something flashed on Jaina's face before she sank back against her pillow and closed her eyes.

Elsa took a seat next to her, waiting to see if she'd passed out before speaking. "My sister seems to think you fell from the sky."

"She's not far off the mark," Jaina replied, eyes flicking across Elsa's face.

❄️

Gods, but she was tired. It wasn't just her injuries, or the realization she'd somehow slipped between worlds. Jaina was tired of everything. Her life the past few years had been nothing but suffering and war, one disaster after another.

But she wouldn't burden this young queen with that weight. There were shadows in Elsa's eyes, a story there of her own suffering. But there was still hope for her. Hope for happiness and peace. And even as part of Jaina wanted to reach out to her, she couldn't let herself. Let herself get attached, expose this woman to the trauma and anger that burned inside her skin.

So she stuck to the basics. That she was Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras, a leader in the Alliance, and that they warred with Sylvanas's Horde. Her last memories had been on board an Alliance gunship as it was under attack, and she used her magic to attempt to escape even as she was blown overboard.

Somehow, in that chaos, she'd wound up in Arendelle.

"So you have magic?" Elsa seemed to be holding her breath, her eyes wide with curiosity and the kind of fear and worry that Jaina understood down to her bones.

"So do you," Jaina pointed out. "I saw it, in the forest. You're a frost mage. A little bit like me."

"There's never been anyone like me." Elsa looked down at her hand, holding her palm up.

Before Jaina's eyes, Elsa created a perfect replica of her, standing with her staff and looking out onto the horizon. "I control ice and snow. I can create almost whatever I wish with it. I don't know if that makes me a mage or not, but you're the first person I've met who can do magic too, rather than have it happen to them."

"There's an entire school of mages. Both sides in the war employ many," Jaina murmured, eyes fixated on that perfect sculpture. Such control, such a fine eye for detail. Something stirred inside Jaina. Old wishes, old memories. "You're very good, Elsa."

The Queen's face was tense. Not from the effort. All of Elsa's magic seemed effortless, as if she had some bottomless well to draw from. But she'd tensed at mages in war. What kind of world was this, with magic hidden away? Did they even have war?

Jaina could no longer imagine a world without war. Once, many years ago, she'd been able to. She'd envisioned it, enough to get other people to go along with it. She'd had hope that differences could be bridged. But in a single catastrophic moment, everything had changed. Hope was for fools and the innocent.

"Jaina?"

She realized too late that tears had escaped, leaving streaks down her cheeks. Looking away, she wet her lips. "I need to rest."

"Of course." Elsa stood, but hesitated. Jaina could feel her eyes on her and stopped herself from saying something she'd regret.

She glanced back at her, seething a little at the concern and curiosity in Elsa's eyes and asked sharply, "What? Your majesty."

"Would you like something to read?" Elsa's voice was calm, her hands clasping in front of her, fingers tightening together.

Jaina was taken aback by the question, anger cooling. "I … yes, thank you."

A tense smile curved on Elsa's lips as her hands loosened. "I'll send a few books your way then, Lord Admiral."

"Just … just call me Jaina." She felt suddenly disarmed and a bit like an asshole but was in no mood to apologize.

"We'll find you a way home," Elsa said, before stepping outside and closing the door.