Ice can melt and decay wood. It can turn it soft and fragile. Then why are two artificial hearts forced to beat as one…?
Olaf knew he loved Pinocchio since he first laid eyes on the puppet, first saw his joints bend and move, free of any strings. He recognized the touch of magic on his wooden form and was instantly drawn to the act of love that must have created him. They were the same height and both were discarded toys cast aside by cruel makers.
"Do you love me?" Olaf asked.
Pinocchio's nose trembled and grew the slightest inch as he shook his head. Olaf took a step closer, taking Pinocchio's carved wooden hands with his twigs. Olaf's ice left small droplets of cold water on Pinocchio's hand sewn leiderhosen.
"No."
Olaf gasped as Pinocchio's nose shot forward like a cannon with the force of his lie, stabbing him through his ice heart where it became gripped with a fierce pain like the blue bite of steel. Icicles spilled from the snowman's coal eyes both from realization of his true wish and from the emotional and physical pain. With some struggle the two of them managed to free themselves, with a crack like thin ice breaking on a lake. Olaf let out a keening cry as the wooden boy broke his heart into shattered snowflakes, leaving freezer burn on the wooden puppet from both the extreme temperature and their unfulfilled memories: making snow angels in the grass, gardening, going to ice markets together but never letting their desires touch although they could both see them in the other's eyes, reflecting off the coal and paint.
Pinocchio could not cry like he wanted to because he lacked tear ducts and wood leaks only sap. Instead he cradled the snowman's limp body in his stiff arms, his nose slowly retracting back into his face as he confessed to the slowly disintegrating pile of snow. "I'm so sorry. I lied. I do love you, I do. I never meant for things to end this way. We were meant to be together, to be happy. I only wish we had been able to see summer together, just once."
A carrot, a handful of coal, and two twigs lay around the puppet as he sobbed dryly. The snow lost all consistency, turning into nothing more than a pile of white powder.
The end.