Love Set In Ice
The five Guardians of the children of Earth, and Cupid, the God of Love, each sat around a worn golden table. They were equally worn out from their day. It was February 15th and Cupid had spent the last 24 hours showing the guardians how important it is to show and give love in every way, shape and form. Cupid smiled sadly over his tea as he watch the immortals bicker playfully with themselves- with all their work they never had time to find love for themselves. And if they did find the one, they could never grow old with their lover, they all knew that- one painfully knew that especially.
"Love", Cupid sighed, "Is a wonderful thing, don't you think Tooth?"
Tooth smiled, "It seems to be Cupe, you showed us that today. All I've ever thought of was the love for Children, not of two humans for themselves."
"You wouldn't know yourself though would you ", he commented, addressing the full group, "You four have always had your sights set on the greater good, the children of Earth. You have neglected yourselves. It's a shame really, I would have some perfect suitors. You're a lovely bunch"
Bunny turned sharply, "Well we- wait you said four of us. There are five guardians Cupid", he eyed the group, suspicion dancing on his hairy brow.
"Well well, it looks as if young Jack has neglected to tell you something, haven't you Jack", the guardians turned to the teenage immortal. Jack lowered his head and played with the tassels on his hoodie, painful grief filled his eyes, "I don't like to talk about it Cupid. It's too painful."
"It's one of the most tragic love stories there is really. Of course he doesn't want to talk about her. Jack Frost and his late great wi-"
"Cupid", Jack snapped, standing up and turning his back on the group. He walked to the large window and placed his hands on the now icy frame, "Just stop please", he whispered, his tearful voice strangely audible in the crowded room. Jack's knuckles turned white. Tooth rose up quickly but gently and made her way over to the boy, "It's alright Jack, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. We understand completely."
Jack continued to stare at the tattered landscape outside of the window, "No, you deserve to know."
"It- it wasn't bad really. It wasn't bad at all, it's just hard to remember that's all." He took a deep breath, "It all happened hundreds of years ago. I was still young and discovering the world. I had heard of this kingdom that was meant to have the best snow in Winter and I mean I just couldn't say no to that, you know?! I was in this town called Ardenelle and that's where I met her. Her name was Elsa."
Jack Frost soared high over the wooden roofs of Ardenelle. He swooped through the crowds of men, women and children, laughing as he caused utter confusion launching snowballs at this person and that. He weaved through the vendor's stalls lined with ice and baked goods. Jack liked this city. The city was nice but Jack had an aching feeling from within him, a feeling that had been gnawing his insides with pain and emptiness for a while now. Jack Frost was lonely. Ardenelle was filled with hoards of smiling, fresh faced children but as always, they just ran, and saw, right through him. Jack was starting to get used to the constant loneliness. It didn't bother him anymore, well that's what he kept telling himself.
Jack sighed, deciding to part with havoc for a while and find a place of solitude where he could think things over. But Ardenelle was a major city, there were thousands of people bustling through the cobbled streets and even though no one could see the boy, everyone was bothering him. Jack rose higher and higher, searching everywhere for a single spot of refuge when he glanced upon the empty cloisters of the nearby palace. Weird, Jack thought, If the city is so vast, why is the palace empty? Jack leapt through the beams and over the walls until he found himself perched upon a swing hanging outside of a large window. Suddenly, Jack heard muffled sobs coming from a nearby room. He effortlessly made his way to the window, and to his discomfort saw a young girl, about eight or nine years of age, sitting alone crying with her head in her hands. Jack felt an awful tugging at his heart; he understood how this girl felt, alone and unwanted, and that killed him inside. Jack examined the room carefully. What he found more peculiar than the child was that the vast room was full of jagged pieces of ice. There was ice everywhere, in patterns on the walls, covering the walls, even on the windows themselves. Now Jack was intrigued. There seemed as if there was enough space to place another bed and sets of drawers and wardrobes in the room but it was just an empty, depressing void.
He silently made his way through the window and stood next to the bed frame with his arms folded, examining the spiral icicle next to him.
"Wh- Who are you", a little voice coming from the girl cried.
Jack whipped around in shock to where the little girl had raised her head. He could see now that she had snow white hair and piercing blue eyes just like me.
"Wait me? You can see me?", Jack said incredulously.
"Of course I can see you. How did you get into the my room."
Jack noted that the girl didn't sound scared by his presence at all, just inquisitive. "You can actually see my, how? And I heard you crying, I wanted to see if I could help you."
"No one can help me", the girl exclaimed, once again on the verge of tears, "I'm a monster."
"Hey hey," Jack whispered making his way slowly over to the distressed girl but she kept moving back trying to get as far away from him as possible, "If I have learned something in my life, and trust me I have learned a lot, it's that there is no such thing as monsters. I'm Jack by the way, Jack Frost."
The little girl sniffled, "I'm Elsa."
"Elsa", Jack said sitting down beside the cowering girl, "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"
Elsa shrunk away from Jack, "Don't touch me, stay away! I don't want to hurt you."
"How could you hurt me Elsa, I thought we were friends"
"I can do sorcery, I nearly killed my little sister. I can do this", Elsa held out her hand and several snowflakes danced around her arm. She started to sob again, "I'm a monster"
Jack froze on the spot (sorry for that awful pun). Elsa was like him, she could control snow and ice. Had the man on the moon given her powers too? And she could see him! Someone could actually see him! But she believed she was a monster, that her powers were a curse rather than a blessing. Jack signalled for the young girl to look at him. He stood up and grabbed his staff, he turned to her, gave her a smirk and caused it to snow lightly throughout the room.
"How did you- how can yo- you're like me!",
"See Elsa, you're not dangerous, I swear and neither am I. Our powers are fun see."
"But I hurt Anna", she cried and launched into the story of how she had hit Anna in the head with ice and how the young princess had to be saved by the trolls.
"And they locked you away", Jack growled. How could they do this to an obviously confused and scared little girl? They were supposed to be her parents.
"It was to protect me. To protect Anna. I can't control it Jack, I might hurt someone. I might kill someone."
Jack pondered, "What age are you Elsa?"
"I just turned eight last month. "
Jack turned fully to face the distressed princess, "Elsa I promise I'll teach you how to control your power so that you'll never hurt anyone ever again. But you have to do one thing for me first."
"Ok"
"You have to remember that your power is a gift, not a curse. You need to remember that it's fun."
"Oh thank you Jack", she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around the boy but suddenly drawing back, "You're not cold? People always get cold when I touch them."
"Same with me Elsa, I guess were both cold enough to touch each other. And well, the cold doesn't bother me anyway."
"It's weird", she commented looking at her hands," but it's kinda nice I guess."
Jack gave the princess a sad smile, "Now I promise I'll return tomorrow to start your training."
"You swear you'll come back Jack. No one ever wants to talk to me"
"I swear I will Elsa, one million times over"
"Ok Jack, but I shant tell Mama or Papa about you or they'll send you away forever."
Jack laughed and leapt towards the open window, "Oh trust me Els, I doubt they would even realise I was there", and with that he was gone.
"For years I taught Elsa how to control her powers. She was strong, almost as strong as me, but she was reckless. See, her powers would spiral out of control when she was scared or under great pressure and that was a lot. For years she even refused to let Anna in. I was her only friend, her only solace and she was mine."
Jack sat silently beside an eleven year old Elsa. He had spent a little over three years in the royal palace of Arandelle and the place had become like a home to him. It was the only place where he felt like he belonged, well that was because the only person that knew him was there.
They were both exhausted having spent the last four hours gleefully enchanting snowmen to come to life.
"Now I can have more than one friend", Elsa had cried when Jack had proposed the idea to her. But Jack didn't like the idea so much after that, Elsa only needed one friend. Jack Frost was jealous.
They had just finished their lesson when they heard a knock on Elsa's large bedroom door.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?", Anna called through the door. They both looked at each other with sad eyes. It was a frequent that the nine year old princess and second in line for the throne would come and pine for her sister's company. Jack often wished to tell Elsa to leave and to not be held back by her fears but he knew that any ounce of fear would cause Elsa to lose control and he couldn't be responsible for either one of the girls getting hurt.
"Or ride our bike around the halls? I think some company is overdue, I've started talking to the pictures on the walls."
Elsa had started to sob, her arms wrapped around her knees.
"It gets a little lonely, all these empty rooms, just watching the hours tick by," Anna made a clicking sound with her mouth. Jack laughed.
"Are you not lonely Elsa", the little girl cried, "I mean I have all the servants and Mama and Papa, but you're all alone. I don't want you to be lonely Elsa, I miss you."
After hearing Anna mournfully walk away, not to Jack or even to herself, "I'm never alone Anna and I'm so happy for that."
Jack returned to his chair but continued to look off with a nostalgic gaze, "As the years passed we became best friends, the best of friends. I learned all about her past, about her kingdom, about her duty and she knew all about my coming to Earth and my decades of exploration. We knew each other's fears and hopes. I had originally planned to only stay in Arandelle for a few weeks, but weeks turned to months and months turned to years. Then this one night I was showing Elsa how to construct ice sculptures. God, she was brilliant at them. She made one the likeness of me and she even got the marks on my sticks exact."
Tooth and North exchanged looks of pity and misery as they listened to Jack describe his former love, student and friend.
"She was about eighteen and she had been blessed with age. You should have seen her, her white hair was long and it shined brighter than the man in the moon. Her eyes as blue as the ocean. She was beautiful. I still looked the same though. If people had seen us then we wouldn't have looked that bad- I was seventeen, she was eighteen. Anyway we were practicing the sculptures when someone knocked on her door. A servant had come with grave news. What came next was a huge shock to both of us, Elsa's parents had been killed in a shipwreck".
"Elsa was distraught and still refused to leave her room, this time for grief and not for fear. I mean she wouldn't even talk to Anna. I tried and tried, you know, to go and get her to speak to her sister but she would have none of it. Anna used to come and sit outside Elsa's door some nights and just cry. I'd go out to see her even though, you know, she couldn't see me. She would try and try to talk to Elsa,
"Please, I know you're in there, people are asking where you've been,
They say "have courage ; And I'm trying to, I'm right out here for you. Just let me in.
We only have each other, It's just you and me. What are we gonna do?
And then she would always whisper to the door, "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
A single tear ran down Jack's pale face.
Even after all the years we had spent together Elsa still thought of her gift as a curse." Jack sighed. "I comforted her for days, weeks even, as she hid in her room. Elsa had a new reason to cry too, but I couldn't understand why it made her so upset. Elsa was heir to the throne of Arandelle, she would become queen in a few years."
" But something changed during those hours I spent grieving with Elsa, as she wept into my cold shoulder. I fo- I found myself falling in love with her."