For the record: Ur, Ul, idek okay it's Ul in the story. No comments about her name.
It was an honest-to-goodness cold day in the kingdom of Fiore. To be quite accurate, it was freezing, white, windy winter. But the cold never seemed to bother two certain ice mages as they strove to follow in their master's footsteps.
Or at least, they told themselves that it didn't.
For no matter how hard and strong they willed themselves to be, they were always shivering on the inside. And sometimes the outside.
Most days their master, the extremely powerful Ul Milkovich, would reprimand them, telling them that as ice-make wizards they ought to endure the cold. But that day, even she had to agree that the weather unbearable. And so, the two children had been unofficially given a break.
But what Ul hadn't thought of was the fact that kids got bored easily. And with Lyon Vastia and Gray Fullbuster, boredom didn't sit well.
And so, their inactivity became so irritating that the inevitable brawl progressed. They were like miniature demons, punching, kicking, freezing and jumping at each other. And taunting, but fighting and taunting came hand in hand, so that was to be expected.
It continued until their master happened to walk into the room. They braced themselves for a scolding. And it came.
"Honestly, can't you two sit still and get along for five minutes? Lyon, unfreeze Gray's arm; Gray, put on your clothes...you kids are going to be the end of me!" She sighed in frustration, throwing her hands up. Her last statement scarily corresponded to the future, but let us forget about that for now as Lyon grudgingly thawed the ice and Gray scrambled for his pants.
After that little session, Ul turned her back for a second. In that moment, Gray took a stance and shouted, "Ice Make: Idiot!"
She probably wouldn't have given another outburst a second thought, but that "spell" was so bizarre that she turned around as Lyon sputtered, "H-Hey!" Gray had frozen his hair to look like a very comical Mohawk.
The black-haired mage caught the gaze of his superior and blurted, "It was totally called for! He was making faces at me!"
Just as Ul was about to reply, Lyon yelled, "What kind of stupid spell name was that!?"
"Exactly what I said. Ice Make: Idiot," he said smugly. "You're the idiot, and I was freezing you."
The silver-haired pupil rolled his eyes. "How clever," he voiced. "Did it take you all week to come up with that one?"
Gray was about to retaliate when Ul yelled, "CHILDREN!"
The two stopped immediately. She was breathing hard, like they had thoroughly succeeded in aggravating her. Something was off. Ul was usually calm and collected. Before they had a chance to ask her about it, though, she quickly filled in the silence.
"I have an idea," she said slowly, as though trying to regain her cool, "why don't you watch a movie?"
The two exchanged a glance. "A movie?"
"Yes," she replied. "I'm pretty sure there's a movie lacrima here somewhere...and besides, it's a good way to keep you occupied without having you tear each other's hair out."
"YAY! MOVIE!" they chorused, putting all arguments aside for a cure to their boredom. They rushed after their master as she chuckled and walked off in search of said lacrima.
Minutes later, they were sitting on the carpeted floor of their living quarters, the beginning of the movie playing.
"Hey, look!" Lyon observed. "The movie's name is Frozen."
"Quiet, idiot, I'm trying to watch," Gray hissed. Of course, he broke his own rule a moment later to exclaim, "Why's everyone randomly singing? It's annoying!"
"I hate to say it, but you're right. Besides, there's no way they can all know the words," Lyon pointed out.
"Maybe it's a work song."
"People don't sing songs while they work," the silver-haired mage declared, irritated.
"They might if it's a work song."
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A WORK SONG!" Lyon bellowed.
"Shut up, or do you want Ul to hear?" Gray muttered.
"Yeah, what's up with her, anyway? She's acting weird today—"
But the young exhibitionist was again already engrossed with the movie, with the song having finished, and his eye twitched as Lyon kept talking his mouth off. "Quiet!" he yelled, and, miffed that he'd been told to shut up twice in a row, Lyon kept his mouth closed, albeit reluctantly.
Their little argument must have lasted a while, for as they both refocused, they had no idea who the two girls on the screen were.
"Nice going, loudmouth," Gray muttered.
"If it weren't for your idiotic work song comment," Lyon shot back.
The brunette in the movie said, "Do you want to build a snowman?"
"Again with the singing?" Gray groaned as Lyon facepalmed. "Can't we forward the inconvenient stuff or something?"
"No way!" Lyon said persistently. "We might miss something important."
And so, the two sat through a bunch of songs and dances when, finally, just as Gray was about to wring his comrade's neck for not letting him skip the boring stuff, a climax seemed to occur.
"Hey! Look!" Gray yelled. "The girl's using maker magic!" And she looks really cool doing it, he thought. Her glove was off and the pale hand concealed underneath was burning blue with power.
"She turned the fountain to ice." The silver-haired mage nodded approvingly, more focused on her ability.
"She's awesome," Gray declared, apparently a fan of the white-haired lady.
The two followed her adventure into the mountains, as she created an entire ice palace in less than two minutes, all the while singing a song with the words 'Let It Go' repeating for the most part. They gazed in awe as she brought the snow to life and slammed the giant frozen door to her new abode.
"She can sing too!?" Lyon exclaimed, frankly mystified with her many talents including rapid ice-make ability.
"See? Work songs," Gray said, smug, but before they could get into a heated debate about that again, she ended with the words, 'The cold never bothered me anyway.' "Hey! She's like me!"
"The cold obviously still bothers you," Lyon snickered. "Your shivering is so blatant."
As much as Gray wanted to put the jerk in his place, he watched as the brunette—Anna, they gathered—was racing off on a horse to "rescue" her sister. Gray couldn't fathom why the ice queen—Elsa, he remembered—would need rescuing from such an epic place.
And thus, for some nonsense reason, he instantly disliked the younger girl.
Lyon and Gray had been watching for one hour straight and the movie was about halfway through; they could tell. So far, Gray had taken a liking to Sven the reindeer while Lyon had an affinity for Olaf. And they both seemed irrationally attracted to Elsa.
As they watched, she accidentally struck Anna in the heart with a shard of ice.
"YEAH!" Gray burst out. "KILL THE ANNOYING GIRL!"
"She's a good guy, you know," Lyon said pointedly, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. But they both chose not to take it any further as they were genuinely interested in the movie. He watched, surprised as she conjured up a huge snow beast to chase her sister away. She looks so majestic, creating something so big with only her hands, Lyon marveled, so full of awe that he forgot that his magic allowed him to do the same.
For once, the two mages could agree on something: Elsa was magnificent. In the new ice-made dress of hers and her pretty side-braid, she looked stunning and her appearance and power was taking its toll on both of them.
But Gray momentarily forgot about that, squealing, "Deliora!" as the beast plundered towards Anna, the guy whose name he failed to recollect, and the reindeer.
"No, you dummy," Lyon scoffed, but again the two were too absorbed in the movie to converse.
Gray immediately calmed down after the monster was gone, and noticed Anna's hair turning white. "SHE'S COPYING ELSA!" he yelled, outraged. "IT'S A SCANDAL!"
"It is understandable," Lyon murmured, and it was; it was natural for any girl to want to look as amazing as the ice queen. Gray was taking it in a completely different way, but Lyon just ignored him to continue watching.
The movie was reaching its closure.
Lyon and Gray were slightly bored, because for an excruciating thirty minutes the movie revolved solely around Anna, whom Gray, for reason unknown to the silver-haired one, wanted to stab. They didn't give up yet, though, waiting not-so-patiently for Elsa's return. And when it came, after Anna and Kristoff—the name of the guy with Anna and the reindeer, which they finally got—reunited briefly, they almost jumped out of their seats in protest.
"NOOOOO!" Gray yelled. "SHE CAN'T DIE! MOVE!"
"Freeze him!" Lyon advised. "Punch him! RUNNN!"
But the two watched in horror as the brown-haired man—whose identity they had no idea of, what with paying attention to only Elsa the entire time—brought down the sword the deliver a killing blow. They didn't connect Anna's abrupt running until they saw her frozen body blocking the strike.
Silence.
Then,
"T-That was so saaaad!" Lyon sniffled, while Gray pumped his fist in the air and shouted, "YES! SHE'S FINALLY DEAD!"
"Shut up, you dolt."
"Make me, you—"
The two stopped arguing as Elsa started sobbing.
"NOOOO! DON'T CRY!" Lyon wailed.
"THE ANNOYING WENCH DESERVED IT!" Gray insisted.
"YOU IDIOT!" Lyon yelled. "THAT WON'T MAKE HER FEEL BETTER!"
But to the latter's delight and the former's dismay, Anna thawed somehow and Olaf the snowman started babbling something about an 'act of true love' which neither of the ice mages cared about. At the very end of the movie, with the credits playing, the two sighed sadly that it was over.
Then something struck Gray's mind. "Hey, so that Kristoff guy doesn't end up with Elsa?"
Lyon rolled his eyes, which he has been doing frequently. "Where in the movie does it even imply that?"
"In the beginning, there was a poster; Elsa and Kristoff were both next to each other in the snow," he explained.
"Well, I guess movie posters can be misleading," Lyon noted.
Gray nodded simply. Then another thought struck him.
"THAT MEANS SHE'S SINGLE!"
"NO WAY, YOU'RE RIGHT!"
"SHE'S MINE!"
"NO, SHE'S MINE!"
"Her maker magic is static like mine," Gray insisted. "She made a castle. So she's mine."
"Wrong, it's dynamic, or have you forgotten about the snowman?" Lyon retorted.
"If you like the snowman so much then it's all yours!"
"No, stupid, Elsa is all mine!"
"MINE!"
"MINE!"
Needless to say, another brawl was afoot as the two started fighting like real men for love...in their imaginative minds, anyway.
"What is going on?"
The fighting ceased as their master approached, sighing. "Even the movie couldn't prevent you from fighting?"
"We finished it," Gray said, "and Lyon is trying to steal my girlfriend."
"She's my girlfriend!"
"MINE!"
"MINE!"
Unbeknownst to them, as they locked into another battle, Ul sighed. Children...
They grew up so quickly. It felt like just yesterday that she took Gray in, a new pupil. And before that...her life before becoming a mentor was something she tried to forget, but was constantly reminded of whenever someone asked, "Why are you doing this, putting up with these children?" Their thoughts were clear as day: she could have found someone else, she could have had another family. She didn't have to still feel the pain incomparable to anything in existence filling her insides, the only thing present in the emptiness.
Emptiness. That was why she took in those two; to fill the void left by her absent daughter. Sure, they were a handful, and they fought all the time, but they were endearing in a way a child was endearing to her mother. Or so she said.
But whenever she did, guilt plagued her. Because no. They weren't her children. They were her pupils. She knew very well why she didn't want to start another family. She didn't want to think she was replacing her child. She turned away as tears suddenly sprung into her eyes. If only...her mind filled up with an image of an adorable little girl, hair black as night, eyes the same as hers...
If only you were still here with me, Ultear.
Meanwhile, the two knights in shining armor were refusing to back down in their love-fest...
"Why would Elsa want someone with the same hair color as hers?" Gray taunted.
"That doesn't even make any sense," Lyon yelled back, "although even so I'd appeal to her more than a subconscious stripp—" He paused as he realized that their tutor hadn't said anything, yet she was still standing there, back turned. "Uh, Ul?"
"Well, I'd say even a subconscious Ul is more appealing than you," Gray cackled, still caught up in the love debate.
"Shut up, you idiot! Look!"
The two stared in confusion as Ul quickly swiped at her eyes and turned. "So, you've resolved your little problem?"
"No..." Gray said, "but what's with you today?"
"Yeah, you're acting strange," Lyon added.
She just blinked at them. So they had noticed after all. Underneath their thick skulls, they weren't so dense. She sighed. "Well, I suppose I ought to explain, then."
The two nodded enthusiastically.
"You see...today is my daughter's birthday."
"You mean the one who you said—" Gray started but was quickly elbowed by Lyon in an attempt to shut him up.
Ul laughed. "That's the one. I suppose I wasn't feeling myself. Sorry if it was weird for you kids or anything." She recomposed herself then, letting all reminiscence of her lost daughter wash away. She glanced out the window. "Hey, looks like the snow's started to melt. That means..." She grinned while they groaned.
More training!
Gray was inexplicably bored.
Again, their training started out with shedding their clothes—which he did on a daily basis anyway—and practicing the same magic that they had been practicing for a year now.
"Let it go, let it go," he mumbled, then cursed. That damned song was stuck in his head. It wasn't that he didn't like it; it was just that Elsa sounded much better singing it than he did.
That bastard Lyon had to notice and laugh spitefully. "You're singing that song!"
"Well, that just proves that my undying love for Elsa is true," Gray shot back.
"No, it doesn't, it means you're a crackhead singing songs while training!" Lyon replied. "And I already told you, she's mine."
"First of all, work songs, remember? And second, she's mine!"
Lyon grit his teeth. "First of all, WORK SONGS DON'T EXIST! Secondly, SHE'S MINE!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
The two gave each other death glares and Gray growled, "Love rival."
Meanwhile, as Gray was acting Juvia-esque (not that he knew that at the moment)...
Ul watched over them. They were at it again. "Oh well," she said to herself. "It's free entertainment, so I shouldn't be complaining." She surveyed the two, arguing passionately over the ice queen when she promptly sighed.
I wonder how they'll react when they finally realize that their 'true love' isn't real.