Her tears froze on her cheeks. She did not want them to. She hadn't wanted this, any of it, but now everything was out of hand and all she wanted to do was cry. But still, the tears froze on her eyelashes and on her frozen cheeks when they had the audacity to escape even that far. The very air around her crackled with the cold, forming clouds with each breath she took. The frost climbed up the wall as she felt her control slipping once again. She shivered, though she was not cold. How could she be, with the cold inside of her, stemming from her very soul? Still, she was cold. Deep in the pit of her chest she could feel her heart freezing even as she knew Anna's heart would freeze. And unlike Anna, there was no cure for her frozen heart. Anna had Hans. Anna had the possibility of love. She did not. For so long she had pushed people away that even Anna, her sister and best friend, no longer knew her. It was the fear that froze her, fear that had governed her most of her life. Now that fear had been realized, and it hurt to her very soul, fueling the eternal winter that she had created.
Thinking back on it, the giant snowman might have been a tad bit out of hand. But she stood there, frozen by fear, afraid that she would hurt Anna more than she already had, and the panic had manifested itself as a giant talking snowman. When he dragged her sister and the blonde man-child away she had started to weep, knowing that the one thing she had feared more than anything since that night in the hall had come true. She had hurt the one person she loved more than anything else in the world. And if Anna died from her frozen heart, it would be all her fault for freezing it. She was always so full of life, full of love. It was she who had first frozen her sister's heart, long ago when they first shut the door. But it had thawed. It always thawed because it was Anna, and what Anna wanted more than anything was love, wherever she could get it. But a heart frozen by magic was not so easily thawed as a heart frozen by rejection. Anna might die, and it was all her fault. She could not face it. She locked the door and sat down on the floor, clutching her knees tightly and holding herself so that the cold inside her heart would not chill her soul.
She did not know how long she sat there, rocking herself as if she were a child and crying frozen tears. The next thing she knew it was dark. The palace looked magnificent in the pale light of the moon, the ice glistening in soft shimmers that reflected into a million patterns. The ice shifted from blue to purple and back again as she lifted herself up off the floor and smoothed out the frozen puddle of tears she had created. Each footfall made a tiny clicking sound as the heels of her glass shoes padded the ground. She walked around the room, studying the way the light bounced off the different layers of ice. This was her paradise, her home now, and yet without Anna it did not feel like a home. It was a gilded, ice cage. She could not melt it and escape. Although Anna had begged her, she didn't know how to melt it, and so she was trapped her, suffocated by her own beautiful creation.
The door banged open in unexpectedly in the upstairs room she had commandeered as her main room. She heard the rush of the wind as it entered her ice palace and shifted the chandelier ever so slightly. She sighed. It would be her doing, of course. The wind was the precursor to the storm; without it the destruction of Arendell would not have been possible. She did not know if she controlled the wind or if it simply had aided her in her out of control spiral, but it didn't seem to matter now. The wind had not been her friend in this, when she had no control over anything.
She ascended the stairs, wondering as she had before at the perfectly clear steps as she placed each delicate foot upon the ice. She could see straight through to the floor below, and the vision made her uneasy. How delicate the ice was, when a breath of heat carried on the wind could melt her creation to the ground. She tread lightly, wary, but as it had before, it held. Once she was sure it was safe she flew up the stairs, her hands slick against the smooth ice of the railings. Here on her own, she could almost pretend she was still free. As she walked into the chamber, surrounded by the sparkling of the ice, she could almost pretend that she was safe from the rules that had limited her. But she knew she would have to exchange her freedom for the safety of the realm. She didn't know how to stop the winter, but she had to try, before she destroyed everything. And she had to try before the fear in her heart destroyed her.
As she walked into the room her eyes were drawn to the chandelier. It was moving slowly, creaking in its ice socket as the icy wind blew in from the window. She sighed and moved towards the window, making to close it. It shouldn't have opened in the first place, but next time she would ice it shut to be safe. As her hand wrapped around the intricate door handle, however, something caught her eye.
She stepped out onto the balcony, hoping to rid herself of the suspicions that had entered her mind. It was just a flash against the white snow, or the northern lights had decided to wake up early this night. It couldn't have been what she thought she had seen. It was impossible, to think that someone had gotten past her snowman, climbed up her ice castle, and was now waiting on her balcony. But when she turned to the place where the flash of color had been, she saw a young boy sitting precariously on the rim.
His posture was that of complete ease, though he hung dangerously close to a fall that would kill any man. Nonchalance, she thought as she studied him. That was the word to describe his demeanor. He wore a strange shirt, dark blue with long sleeves and a hood like that made for a riding cloak. His pants were torn near the bottom and his feet were bare, but as one rested on the ledge and the other one hung over she saw no sign of cold in his posture. In his hands he held a long staff, taller than she was, balancing it on his knees. His hair was a startling white, not too far from her own blonde locks. She hated to disturb him and risk him falling, but she needed to know who he was and how he had infiltrated her castle.
"Turn around," she demanded, and her voice was much higher than she wanted it to be. She didn't sound like a queen, she sounded like a scared little girl. She swallowed and tried again. This time her voice came out more commanding and regal, more befitting of the queen she knew she had to be. "Who are you and what are you doing here? I demand you turn around this instant."
He moved then, standing up and walking the ridge like a tightrope until he came in line with her. He jumped down nimbly from his perch so that he and she stood face to face. His eyes, she noticed, were a startling blue, like the ice crystals with which she had decorated the palace. They studied her, looking her up and down with an emotion that was not quite contempt. Then he smiled, and his mischievous grin lit a fire in a part of her she had forgotten existed, so long had it been numbed by the cold. She shivered as she looked into those icy blue eyes.
"My name is Jack Frost. And I'm here to help you."
