Arendelle, 28 August 1730

From Anders Celsius,

To M. Pierre Louis Maupertuis,

Academie des Sciences, Louvre, Paris

My friend,

I have had little time to review your latest concerning Cassini; I must beg your forgiveness, but once I explain I believe you will agree that I was entirely justified. I am away from the university on a visit to the Northern Kingdom of Arendelle and have been for the past week. You may have heard rumors from your friends in the Royal Society already, but the new ruler of Arendelle, only twenty-one, is a young woman said to have mystical powers over the cold.

If you have not yet heard these rumors, I can well imagine your expression now; mine would have matched it, I assure you, but for the chance visit of the Russian ambassador to my university a few weeks past. The gentlemen is an old friend of the chancellor and was visiting briefly while traveling back to his own capital. After being introduced, this ambassador told a most extraordinary tale of the recent coronation of Queen Elsa. I was naturally skeptical, but his character was well-attested by the chancellor and the phenomena he recounted sounded nothing like the usual tricks of charlatans and fraudsters that the credulous affirm as miracles or magic.

I wished to see this for myself, and appealed to the chancellor for a leave. I believe I am the first gentlemen of our sort to visit the young queen. Upon my arrival…

"Presenting the honorable Doctor Anders Celsius of Uppsala University, your majesty." The servant's voice carried through the throne room over the chatter of a few courtiers and merchants. The hall was not very busy, Celsius noted, though this was hardly unexpected. Even before the peculiar withdrawal of King Agthar and his family several years ago, the kingdom's influence had been on the wane. It produced timber, fish, and fine sailors, but little else; in contrast to its fellows, Arendelle had no colonial properties of any kind.

Despite that, Celsius had to admit that it had advantages over Sweden, its neighbor to the East; at least here the kingdom demonstrated some unity rather than an endless contest between noble families. It was a refreshing change.

Moving his eyes to the throne, Celsius was arrested by the young queen's appearance. A loose braid of pale blonde hair hung over her left shoulder, setting off striking blue eyes. Her dress was dark blue with purple accents, and though conservatively cut, as befitting her station, it could do little but accentuate the slender grace of the young woman. The professor actually forgot for a moment the purpose of his visit as the servant escorted him to the throne. Shaking his head to clear it, he knelt.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, your majesty. Thank you for replying to my request for a visit." He raised his eyes to see a pleasant expression on the lady's face.

"You may rise, sir, and of course you are quite welcome here."

Despite himself, Celsius felt a little heat in his cheeks as he stood; the queen's voice was a match for her appearance.

"Quarters have been prepared for you here in the castle. I hope that you will be sufficiently rested from your journey to join myself and the princess for dinner."

Celsius swallowed and nodded before replying. "I would be honored."

Naturally, I hoped to inquire about the matter of these purported miraculous events, but I found myself totally unable to question her in open court. She has... quite a presence. After repairing to my rooms, which were very well-appointed, I rested and prepared for dinner. I did not expect to receive such pleasant accommodations, but my conversation with Queen Elsa after dinner went a fair way toward explaining them…

"Well, this has been fun but I think I recall that I have something to do so…" Princess Anna bit her bottom lip and stood, glancing at her sister.

"It's fine, Anna. If I miss you in the morning, it will be Fritjof's fault, again." She stood and embraced the younger woman, then smiled warmly. "Good evening."

"Thanks, Elsa." She smiled brilliantly at her sister, then turned to their guest. "Professor, it was nice meeting you. If you're bored tomorrow, ask one of the attendants to find me. I plan to leave my sister to her duties if I can get away with it."

Celsius rose and bowed at the young woman. "Thank you, your highness. I may do that."

Dinner had been eye-opening. Both young women were surprisingly well-versed in physics and mathematics, rare in his experience. Anna had assured him that they had a great deal of tutoring and time on their hands when they were younger, but had not elaborated further. In any case, they had largely let the professor guide the conversation as he recalled his work, his travels, and the colleagues with whom he corresponded.

Now, though, he was to be left in the queen's company. He had as yet found no way to tactfully bring up the question of her "powers," and since she did not appear to be wandering the hallways freezing things he was at a loss as to whether he should even try to bring it up. It all seemed so… impossible.

One of the servants served him a glass of brandy; he watched as the queen sampled her own approvingly, then raised an eyebrow questioningly.

This was it, then.

"You were quite circumspect in your letter, Dr. Celsius, but I believe that we both know you are not here for conversation. As I have been dealing with diplomats and merchants recently, I would appreciate it if you were to state your question without further dissimulation."

She leaned forward and folded her hands on the table, a coy smile on her face. "You're the first, you know," she stated, her gaze fixed on him. "Word has not spread far enough or fast enough yet, but I knew it would not be long. I am glad that it is you and not one of the ambassadors who are even now, I'm sure, trying to decide what to think about me."

Celsius remained silent, feeling rather hot and nervous.

"I'm sure you do not fear asking questions, Dr. Celsius. So ask. I will answer." The young queen watched him evenly.

The scientist gathered his wits and took a breath. Was he afraid of asking, or was he afraid of her answer? He was not sure. There was only one thing to do, though.

"Is it true that you have… magical powers over the cold?" Asking the question felt even more ridiculous than he had expected, particularly as he was asking it of this beautiful, intelligent young woman before him. He saw her lips quirk in a smile.

"Yes, doctor, it is true."

He blinked, then took a long drink of his brandy. It did not help. "Really?" He asked helplessly.

The queen did laugh this time. It was soft and gentle, not mocking, the humor of a teacher who sees a student working away at a difficult problem but missing the solution

"Yes, really. Here, let me show you." Queen Elsa lifted her right hand. Celsius saw some glittery ice form between her hand and the surface of the table, and a moment later it coalesced into an icy duplicate of the glass which held his brandy. She looked expectantly at him, waiting for him to speak, then watched his eyes widen as it slid across the table by itself.

It was cold in his hand, and he could feel the exquisitely thin ice melting from the heat of his palm. Lifting it carefully, he saw that it was perfectly translucent, with no bubbles visible. It was also fantastically well-crafted. He really had no idea how such a fake could have been made.

"I… I don't know what to say, your majesty," he stated, his eyes fixed on the melting ice in his hand. "I really don't know whether I can believe the evidence of my senses. It's more than a little difficult to accept, you know."

When he paused and looked at the queen, he was taken aback by the intensity of her gaze.

"Yes, doctor. I am well aware of how difficult it might be to accept."

She took a deep breath, then schooled her expression. "What else do you want to know?"

"Can you, well, show me more? Perhaps things of varying scale, in different locations, maybe things I request? Forgive me, but I am having a hard time believing this is real." He looked plaintively at the queen, who nodded her head.

"Of course. Shall we go for a little walk in the main courtyard?"

I can hardly tell you how shocked I was. I was ready at any moment to discount what she was doing, to believe it was a lie, but she could do anything I asked. No trickery could have demonstrated such preparation or scope. I watched her create icy statues to my exact specification, then dismiss them into nothing. Queen Elsa conjured a wall of ice as high as the castle gate and half again as long at my request, and did so with no sign of effort whatsoever. These were large objects and small, complex and simple, all made immediately in an open area. There was no trickery to be detected. She even extinguished open flames with her ice, and covered surfaces in it without touching them. (I have attached a list of the items she created, where, and their relative sizes.)

My friend, I had no choice but to accept that it was true. The chancellor's Russian friend had neither lied nor exaggerated. Queen Elsa of Arendelle has mystical powers over ice and snow.

I'm sure this all sounds incredible, but I can only ask you to trust my word until you one day see it for yourself. The queen would not disclose the limits of her powers, and indeed I had the unsettling impression from both her majesty and the residents of the kingdom with whom I spoke that such limits may not even be known. Everyone I interviewed corroborated the ambassador's tale: her majesty the queen had frozen the entirety of the city, along with the whole fjord and several miles of the country around, for three full days. On the third day, she simply removed it all.

They call it "The Great Thaw," and I found no evidence that it was anything other than the truth. Over the past week I have spent in the kingdom, every detail has lined up. I have to say that there is another matter about which I spoke with Princess Anna that defies even the magic I saw demonstrated. I do not wish to write of it here, but suffice it to say that it is hardly something that I can test.

Please share this letter with those in your circle whom you trust. I will be posting a few myself when I return home.

Pierre, I beg you to take me at my word, though I do not know how you can. I know what I have seen. As for our colleagues and friends around the continent, I know this: if they do choose to laugh at me, they will not laugh long.

Regards,

Anders Celsius

Elsa watched carefully as Doctor Celsius' ship left the fjord. The man was young, but well-respected and well-known. His words would even now begin traversing the distance between Arendelle and the nations beyond. Men of science, men of learning would read them. Governments even now would be talking.

What would they decide to do about the witch in the North?

The queen waited as the vessel finally passed beyond her sight. She would need to follow, she knew; follow the words to the men who would read them with incredulity. She would have to show them, soon, that she was not going to wait for them to decide what to do about her and her country.

The storm was loosed, and she would have to control it. That was her gift, after all.

She was the Snow Queen.

AN: Well, it seems that after watching Frozen several weeks ago I could not get it out of my head. I plan to make this a story about Elsa out and about in the world to some extent. Naturally, my primary efforts will be focused on Harry Potter and the Scīenra Cwēna, but this should be a fun side project. Oh, for the record, I know that bicycles were invented in the early nineteenth century and therefore that Frozen must canonically happen after that; I also don't really care. The eighteenth century suits my purposes better, so here we are. It's all made up anyway, after all.