The Finer Points of Carrots

It could have been worse. Olaf blinked. Yes, it definitely could have been worse.

He sat up, still feeling dizzy. Tumbling off a cliff into a snowdrift was not something he'd want to try again soon. A few metres away, the two humans dusted themselves off. Sven the reindeer looked downright nauseous.

Olaf went to rub his head, and found he couldn't. He didn't have arms anymore. Drat. He reached for his nose, only to suddenly remember he couldn't do that either. He squinted. Yes, his nose was missing too.

"Is everyone all right?" Anna adjusted her braids. "Nothing broken?"

Kristoff rubbed Sven's back until the reindeer was no longer cross-eyed. "I think we're fine."

"Speak for yourself," Olaf wailed. "I've lost my arms, and my nose."

Kristoff smirked. "Yes, we're fine."

Anna trudged across, and knelt beside the snowman. "No other injuries?"

"Not that I can feel..." Olaf shrugged. "Mind you, I do lack bones and internal organs."

"And a brain." Kristoff wiped the last snowflakes from his blond eyebrows.

Anna scratched her chin. "Hmmm. Oh look, there are your arms!"

Pulling a pair of twigs from the snow, she reattached Olaf's arms. "You poor thing. Kristoff, we need to find his nose!"

"Never mind his nose."

Olaf glided over to the young man, and prodded him in the chest. "Everyone needs a nose! Especially snowmen!"

Kristoff batted away an incoming twig. "All right, all right. We'll find your damned carrot. Happy?"

Anna bent down, and picked something up in her gloved hand. "Here it is!"

Olaf peered closer. Yes, it was his nose. It had to be. How many other carrots did you find in the middle of a snowdrift at the bottom of an enormous cliff?

"Mine!" the snowman squealed.

Olaf reinserted the carrot into the middle of his face, only to find that, for whatever reason, he hadn't. He'd inserted it lower down, between where his legs would be. If he'd had legs. He'd never positioned it there before, of course, but for some reason it now felt right.

He grinned, displaying his new form to his companions. "So what do you think?" he asked, proudly.

Anna frowned. "Looks a bit odd. Kristoff?"

Kristoff only stared. Wide-eyed, his mouth gaped like a fish's.

"What's the matter?" asked Olaf. "It is all right there?" But Kristoff only spluttered.

Olaf ran his stick hand over the carrot. It felt good, very good.

"Um, Olaf." Kristoff reached forward, as if to tug the carrot away from the snowman. But Olaf danced out of his clutches.

"Not now!" the snowman tittered.

Olaf couldn't believe how much fun it was to rub the carrot. This was better than any nose.

"Would you like to stroke my carrot, Kristoff?" he asked.

"No," said Kristoff, between gritted teeth. "I would not like to stroke your carrot."

Anna smiled. "I'll rub your carrot, Olaf. Anything to make my little snowman happy."

She stretched out her hand. Kristoff knocked it away.

"Don't," he snapped.

Anna frowned. "Now, don't be jealous, Kristoff. If you had a carrot, I'd stroke it."

"I do have a carrot, thank you very much, and that's absolutely the last I'll hear of it."

"Men have carrots?"

Beneath his blond hair, Kristoff blushed beetroot. "Figuratively, not literarily. Come on, let's go."

Olaf glided over to the reindeer. "What do you think, Sven?"

"No..." began Kristoff. Too late. Sven sniffed the carrot. He took it his mouth.

"Oh, Sven," Olaf gasped. "Oh oh..."

The hot, moist reindeer tongue toyed with the vegetable, prodding it from either side.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" The snowman screamed in ecstasy. Never in his life had he felt such pleasure. A surge went through him. He shuddered. "Ahhhhhh!"

Olaf collapsed back into the snow. He lay there, gasping and contented, as the stars and the Aurora wheeled overhead.

The carrot remained lodged in Sven's mouth. His face still a blushing red, Kristoff slapped the reindeer's flanks. "Spit it out. Now!"

Sven shook his head, and began munching the carrot.

"Spit it out! You only swallow with me!" Kristoff paused. "Wait. Did I just say that?"