Snow

"Hurry up Elsa!"

"Anna! Come back here and put your mittens on!"

My three-year old sister bounced up and down in the gently falling snow, giggling madly as I brandished the gloves at her. "It's so pretty Elsa!" She threw herself face first into a snow drift, the action sending a burst of power up into the swirling snowflakes still falling.

"Anna! You're going to get soaking wet!" I chastised her as I followed her into the snow drift, brandishing the mittens. Unfortunately, the snow bank was deeper than I thought. I fell in up to my knees, snow falling into the tops of my boots. Startled, I over-balanced and softly fell onto the cushion of snow next to my sister with a whump.

"I thought you weren't going to roll in the snow, Elsa?" Anna asked, her head tilted to the side.

I sat up, spitting snow out of my mouth. "I wasn't planning on it…" I muttered, wiping my lips with the back of my mitten. I grabbed her hands and forced the small mittens onto them. She allowed me to cover up her hands but fidgeted the whole time. It was like trying to get a hyper-active puppy who had to pee to sit still.

"Now that I have my mittens on, you'll play with me?" Anna asked when I was finished.

"Yes, Anna." I told her. That was the whole reason I'd come outside with her. She'd woken up this morning and had begged me to take her out in the snow to play. I'd held her off all morning through breakfast and lessons, promising that if she was good I'd take her out before dinner. Now here we were, Anna still as hyper as she'd been this morning and me tired of getting her to sit still.

Anna grinned. "Good!" Next second, she tackled me around the middle. "I've got you!"

I grunted as I fell back into the snow under her weight. "Anna! Get off!"

She squirmed on top of me, trying to locate the ticklish spot she knew I had on the left side of my stomach. But with both of us wrapped up in far too many layers, her search was proving difficult.

Anna and I continued to giggle and tussle in the snow bank together, shrieking and laughing as we kicked up snow and randomly took turns rolling the other over.

For a girl barely past her toddler days, Anna was strong.

Finally, I managed to push Anna far enough away from me that I could sit up.

"Enough, Anna!" I told her sternly but the statement lacked conviction as I was still flushed from laughter. I brushed snow off of my coat and took deep, steady breaths to slow my heart rate. Wrestling with Anna had elevated it and it seemed like the snow was falling faster now then it had been when we'd first jumped, or in my case, fell into the snow bank.

Anna grabbed my wet mitten in both her hands and tugged on it. "Can we build a snow-person Elsa?" She asked, her eyes wide with excitement at her new idea for fun. "Can we? Can we?"

I knew she wouldn't shut up unless I gave in. I threw my hands up, the falling snow swirling heavily around them. "Alright! Fine! I'll start on the body, you work on his head." I was just glad she hadn't suggested a snow ball fight. Probably because she knew I'd win. My snow balls never missed.

Anna nodded enthusiastically and bounded a little ways away into the snow. Then she squatted down and began to scoop the surrounding snow towards her.

I picked myself out of the snow bank with surprising ease. The snow just seemed to fall away from me.

Walking a little ways from the snow bank, I picked out a spot where we would build our masterpiece. A little ways away from the snow bank, the courtyard leveled out under a more even cover of snow. It appeared the caretakers had cleared the courtyard earlier to form our snow bank then it had snowed even heavier and they hadn't had a chance to clear it again.

I fell to my knees in the snow and reached forward to scoop some snow towards toward me. I worked quickly and efficiently, the snow just seemed to want to go wherever my hands were guiding it. In no time at all I had our snowman's base ready.

I took a break and leaned back to look upwards. Snowflakes swirled around me, each unique in its own right, each one no bigger than the tip of a knitting needle. A smile came to my face as I stared at the descending silence. Watching the snow fall always transfixed me. Snowfall just made everything right. It made things slow down and stay still for awhile. You didn't get that from any other kind of weather. Sunshine was too active, clouds too depressing and rain too harrying. But when the air grew cold and frozen water began to fall from the sky, everything went quiet. Everything seemed to pause and hold its breath as the flakes gracefully dropped from the sky and floated sweetly down until they met the earth below.

I sighed in contentment and closed my eyes to better feel the flakes caress my skin. Snowfall had always calmed me, winter was my favorite time of year exactly for that reason. I didn't like the heat of summer or even the gentle warmth of spring, they always made me feel wrong, anxious. But every time it snowed, something in me seemed to fall back into place and I found myself inexplicably happy. Today in particular, I was in the snow with my little sister, away from the palace, rolling in the snow so much it almost felt like I was becoming a part of it. Just another piece of this silent, beautiful, cold landscape.

My left hand suddenly felt wet inside my mitten. My eyes snapped open and I squirmed in discomfort. Was there a hole in my mittens? Had some snow gotten inside?

I pulled off one of my mittens and examined the bare hand before me. It was dry but I could feel something cold on my palm. I flicked my hand, trying to make the feeling go away.

The wind suddenly seemed to pick up and abruptly, a large parcel of snow rolled from the snow bank and landed squat on the base I'd just built, forming a perfect middle as if by design.

I pulled my hand close to my chest as the cold feeling faded. That was odd. It was almost like the snow had just moved where I'd wanted it to. I quickly pulled my mitten back on and climbed back to my feet, my eyes never leaving the rouge pile of snow. It sat there innocently, moving no more than any other mound of snow around it.

There was a grunt behind me and I turned to see my sister struggling to lift a massive wad of snow that was nearly the same size as her.

"Where are you going with that?" I asked her, amused as she stumbled and juggled the thing in her hands.

Anna beamed up at me from behind the monster ball of snow. "It's his head!" She told me as she waddled up to me. Promptly, she turned it over into my hands. "Here!"

"Anna," I said carefully, holding the misshapen ball of snow in my hand. "This isn't round, its oval."

"It looks more like a head." Anna told me, undeterred. "No one has a round head, Elsa!"

I smiled. Three years old and already she was stubborn. "You're right." I agreed. "Our snowman will have a properly shaped head." I held the head in my left hand and offered her my right. "Come on."

She took my hand and I helped her clamber over to the body I'd constructed. I lifted the head up. "Here, I'll put the head on and you pile on some snow for his neck so it doesn't fall off."

Anna nodded and scooped up a large handful of snow as I carefully lowered the head onto the body. She packed it around the head as I held it steady.

When we were certain the head was not going to fall off, we released it and admired our handiwork.

The snowman's body was rounded towards the bottom, almost like those stuffy politicians that always came to visit dad. His feet were pretty small by comparison but they looked up to the task of supporting him. The "correctly" shaped head Anna had fashioned for him was the thinnest part of him but it had a certain character to it one didn't see with snowmen who had rounded heads. I quite liked it.

We managed to find him some arms, buttons and eyes by digging through the kindling pile under the courtyard overhang. Anna and I took several tries to find the right pair of arms and got very lucky when two nearly identical sticks that seemed to have fingers appeared in our pile.

"He's done!" Anna cried in delight as I carefully pressed his small coal eyes into his face.

"Almost done." I corrected her. Anna looked at me curiously, not understanding. I smiled and reached into my pocket to pull out my prize: a huge carrot I'd swiped earlier this morning from the stables.

"You get to put on his nose in." I told my sister as her eyes widened. She took the carrot from me and slowly walked to stand in front of our creation.

Anna stood up on tiptoe and pushed the carrot into place on our snowman's face. The carrot was crooked and fat towards the wrong end but somehow it matched our misshapen snowman perfectly.

With a final pat to make sure the carrot would stay, Anna stepped back and stood next to me.

"What do we call him?" Anna asked me, taking my hand.

I found I didn't have to think very hard before the name came to mind. "Olaf."

Anna giggled. "Olaf? I like it!"

At that moment, Elie, our nursemaid came running outside shouting that father hadbeenlookingforus and whatwerewedoingouthereinthesnow,werewetryingtocatchourdeathofcold?

I pulled Anna back inside but not before she ran back to the snowman we'd built and pulled him into an undoubtedly very warm hug.

"Bye Olaf. I'll miss you when you melt."

Then she darted back to my side and wrapped her arms around my waist in a tight hug.

I smiled, wrapping an arm around her as I guided us inside. Anna gave the best hugs.