"...sixty!"
Kristoff followed Olaf into the castle slowly. It wasn't just what the ice combined into, it was the ice itself. This wasn't the kind of ice you sold to the English so they could keep their milk cold, this was the kind of ice that the artisans would pay a fortune to carve (not that they could possibly do anything more magnificent than this). Perfectly clear, no cracks, not a single bubble to be seen. It was like glass. He'd never seen anything like it. The pillars, which did have cracks, even looked all the better for it. No one, no artist or ice harvester could make ice look good the way this ice looked good.
"Hi! I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!"
Kristoff looked at the queen. He heard Anna say she looked different, but… well, she definitely did look different.
"Olaf…? And who's this?"
"I'm-"
"That's Kristoff, Elsa. He, well, he helped he get here. And he saved my life."
Elsa peered at the large, slightly dirty man before her, "did he now…"
Kristoff suddenly realized that he was in front of his Queen, and dropped to a knee. "Your Majesty."
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Then Kristoff looked at the Queen, who was still eyeing him, and said, "We came here for you, Your Majesty. We came to bring you back."
Elsa dropped her gaze and put her hand in the crooks of her elbows. "I can't go back."
"Elsa, please, come back," Anna pleaded, "for me."
"And for us," Kristoff added earnestly, "the people of Arendelle want their Queen back."
Elsa looked at Kristoff, then at Elsa, and then at her hands. Then she looked at Olaf questioningly.
"Well, Elsa, it sounds to me these guys know what they're talking about. Now I want to go to Arendelle too."
And Elsa walked down the stairs to join her sister, and the four of them walked out of the palace together.
Hans knelt. "Duke Weselton," he said.
"Young Hans, it is clear to me that Arendelle is no longer of any value, regardless of whether the Queen returns."
"Are… are you sure? I can still be the-"
"Yes, Hans. I am sure. This winter is here to stay, and Arendelle will need all of its goods to survive. Nor will they be able to afford any of the luxury goods it once could. But if the queen does return, we are to cooperate with her unless I tell you otherwise."
"And what of my relationship with Anna?"
"There will be nothing of the sort. We are to cut off relations with Arendelle as soon as we return. Until then, cooperate with the royal family, and continue to care for the populace. I will not have a family of sorceresses be dissatisfied with me. It would be bad for business."
"Yes, sir," Hans left the dark, cool room, returning the gaze of one of Duke Weselton's guards. Anna is incredibly obnoxious anyways.
Kristoff stared at Elsa's exposed shoulders. He was wearing three layers and he still felt a little cold (not that he wasn't used to it), and Anna fared no better. But Elsa didn't seem to mind. In fact, she seemed to thrive in the frigid air. Which, he supposed, made sense, since ice was her thing, but it was his thing too, and he still got cold. But still, that dress couldn't be keeping her warm, and the slit by her leg…
Elsa made a face at Kristoff that wasn't quite anger, but he probably couldn't have called it anything else. "Aren't you cold?" He said quickly. Elsa's expression softened.
"Oh… No, I don't really get cold. It's, well, it's my thing," Elsa said, smiling.
"It's my thing too, but I still don't get cold."
"Well, I don't think it's really the same," Elsa said, half pointing at Kristoff's chest. He looked down and watched shit top layer become slightly frosty.
He looked at Olaf. "No, I suppose it's not." The frost on his chest disappeared quicker than it appeared. He looked at Elsa who wasn't paying him any attention anymore. His gaze slowly fell down her back…
"Listen, Elsa, I have to tell you this, and you have to relax, okay?" Anna said.
Elsa stopped in her tracks. "Tell me what?" she said apprehensively.
Kristoff could tell Elsa was going to hear this too abruptly. But he couldn't interrupt it; he wasn't a part of their situation. They were sisters.
"When you left-ran-you froze the fjord."
"All of it?"
"All of it.
"Well, it's summer. It'll just melt-slowly-but it'll melt, and the dignitaries can be on their way." Elsa's intonation put an unspoken, shaky right? at the end of her sentence.
Uh oh, Kristoff thought.
Anna's face turned to one of anxiety, while Kristoff's turned to one of sympathy. "Well… no."
"No?" Elsa's nervous smile vanished.
"It… you kind of… made it winter…"
"Oh no… oh no…" Elsa's hands moved to her head. "I can't be trusted… I knew that.. that something would… how could I have-"
Kristoff took his glove off and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him hopefully. Her skin had the familiar sensation of ice to Kristoff. "It's okay. You can fix this." Elsa closed her eyes, and her skin warmed up.
"I don't know how."
"You can figure it out Elsa! You've always been smart!" Anna said cheerfully.
"How could I do that?"
"You mean you can't just… un-ice it? Thaw it? Undo it?" Kristoff asked.
"No… I've never thawed anything before."
"But… but how did you do it before?"
"Do what?"
"With the frost? On my chest, it just disappeared faster than it appeared."
Elsa stared at Kristoff's chest. She walked towards it, and lightly rested her hands on it. "It just disappeared…?" She looked at Kristoff, whose face was a little pink. She glanced at her hand and quickly removed it.
Anna squinted at the two of them. "Whaaaat are you guys talking about?"
"Before, she froze my shirt, and then she made it thaw-not just thaw, but dissappear. Like it was never even there."
"How can I do that with an entire winter, though?"
"Elsa…" Anna stepped close to her sister, "just like your powers over ice grew, your power of… of thawing can grow," Anna said. Then, more softly, "I know it."
"So do I," Kristoff said with confidence. Elsa looked at Kristoff with a face that betrayed all of her anxiety and self-doubt. "Come on. Let's go to Arendelle."
Of course there were whispers, and hushed exclamations, but mostly, they just stared at her. Elsa expected disgust, or hatred, or, worst of all, fear. But it wasn't. It was… what was it?
"They're amazed," Kristoff said, reading her face.
"Amazed?" Elsa said. Anna's expression expressed the same confusion.
"Well, what you did may have made a winter, but they've seen one before. They'll live. But you created a winter. That's something the gods do, Queen. And you look beautiful."
Elsa and Anna both looked at him. He didn't notice; he was watching the faces of the townspeople.
"Anna!"
Hans ran up to her and embraced her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine, Hans."
"And Queen Elsa… I'm terribly sorry for all of this, if-"
"No Prince Hans, it's alright. I shouldn't have.. I shouldn't have done a lot of things. I also should've done some things," she looked at Anna, "but we have work to do."
"You- You do?"
"Yes. We must go to the castle."
Kristoff stood with Sven, watching them walk.
"Kristoff?" Anna said, "aren't you coming?"
"I… should I be?" Kristoff said, surprised. Anna looked at Elsa.
"Of course you should. Come on," Elsa said with a little more enthusiasm than she had intended. Kristoff jogged up to them.
"Wait… Kristoff?" Olaf asked, perplexed.
It was late into the night. Elsa hadn't melted a single thing since she locked herself in her room.. was it five hours ago? Little balls of test ice filled the edges. What time was it? 2:00 AM? 2:30? She should sleep… but how could she sleep comfortably when she knew there were people in the town who were shivering in their beds? She chucked her latest piece of ice across the room, and it shattered against the wooden frame of her window, scratching off some of the white paint.
What was Kristoff talking about? I didn't thaw anything…
She watched the little snowflakes falling from the ceiling. She had to relax. It was probably getting even colder for the townspeople. But how could she relax with that thought in her mind? That she was slowly freezing the water in their homes, that she was icing their doors shut, trapping them in their homes with stale, frozen food, leaving their children to shiver-
Someone knocked on the door, and elsa almost jumped into the roof. She tiptoed over to the door, "Hello?"
"Queen Elsa, are you alright?" It wasn't Kai, it was… Kristoff? She opened the door a little bit, and peered out at the ice harvester who suddenly realized he just knocked on the door of the Queen at two-thirty in the morning. "I-uh, I heard something shatter, and when I came down into the hallway, the door was freezing over… I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I didn't mean to intrude…" Kristoff set his eyes on the floor.
Elsa looked at Kristoff's breath in the frigid air, and watched his hair flow, and realized that Kristoff must have a very cold breeze in his face right then. "Its alright, Kristoff. Don't worry about it." She opened her door wider and leaned against the frame, watching Kristoff shiver in his pyjamas. "What's that?"
"It's the shirt I was wearing that you froze and thawed. Maybe it'll help. It might smell a little bit; sorry about that. I didn't want to ruin it or break something or whatever by washing it," Kristoff gave a nervous laugh. Elsa responded with a smile, and took the shirt.
"Thank you very much, Kristoff. Sorry about waking you up-"
"Oh no, you didn't. I was-well, I wasn't sleeping, I was just, you know. Thinking."
"Walking the halls of the castle?" Elsa put on a mischievous smile.
Kristoff sighed, "No secrets from you, huh? I've never been in the royal castle. Not even in the courtyard. The biggest building I'd ever been in before now was a tavern that all the hunters, trappers, and ice harvesters would spend their money in." He crossed his arms, trying to hide how cold he was from the Queen. But, like he said, there were no secrets from the Queen. She might have been a shut-in, but she was extremely perceptive.
"Oh, you must be cold!" Elsa pretended to notice for the first time, leaving her room and shutting the door.
"Oh no, really, I'm-"
"Have you been through the whole castle?" Elsa said, taking a step and a half through the hall, looking at Kristoff expectantly.
Confused, Kristoff followed her. "I think so. I wandered through for-uh, for a while."
Elsa laughed. "Well, maybe you can give me a tour. I spent most of my time in the library or my room."
"Well, to be honest, I'm-Well, I suppose I'm lost."
Elsa studied his chagrined face. "How did you get to my room when you heard the sound?"
He suddenly found the walls and ceiling very interesting. "Well, I was-I was already in the neighborhood, I guess, and-"
"You were already outside my door?" Elsa was stifling a laugh, but put on a mask of indignance.
"No, no no no, Queen Elsa, I just-Well, I sorta knew your room as a reference point, I guess, and so I figured I'd follow the cool breeze," at this point he took a deep breath, "and then when I heard the shatter, I knocked on your door."
Elsa finally let out a laugh, and it caught Kristoff of guard-it was such a colorful laugh, full of life and so very warm. It was the kind of laugh that reminded him of a sunset on the mountain, or a fire at his campsite, or-or the palace on the North Mountain that, despite being made of ice, felt very warm to him. It was the kind of laugh that didn't just infect you with laughter, but infected you with laughter, and warmth, and comfort.
"Don't worry about it, Kristoff. And just Elsa is fine." She extended him a smile. Not a Queen's smile, or a diplomat's smile, or princess' smile, but the smile of a young woman.
"Sure. Just Elsa."
And they walked together through the hall.