A/N: This is what happens when you pump a film's dialogue through several layers of Google Translate, then write a fic based on the results. Inspired by Malinda Kathleen Reese's wonderful Google Translate Sings series on YouTube. This first chapter contains a few lines from her "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" video. Every line spoken is the raw translation result, save for removing a little irrelevant punctuation a few places. All characterisations, situations, depictions and descriptions are based on Google's wonderful attempt at translating the spoken words. Hilarity ensues.
It was a dark night in Arendelle. A few stray shafts of moonlight were the only thing illuminating the bedroom of the two princesses. Elsa was sleeping soundly, smiling in her dreams. That was until Anna peered over the side of her bed.
"Elsa, psst. Elsa! Psst!" Unhappy with Elsa's lack of response, Anna climbed up onto her bed and begun shaking her shoulders. "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
Elsa woke a little and simply shot her a confused look in her tiredness. "Anna is sleeping," she murmured.
Anna huffed, "I am not. The sky is there," she gestured dramatically towards the window, "I'm awake, we have to play!" She flopped herself on Elsa, like the drama queen she was. But Elsa didn't quite understand the concept.
"Play… is…?" She gave Anna another puzzled look. Anna sighed at her sister's lack of understanding, well, anything. It seemed as if poor, young Elsa was in a permanent state of confusion. She changed the topic to something Elsa did know.
"Did you build a snowman?" Elsa's only response was a wide, cheeky grin.
Excited to see Elsa's creation, Anna pulled her along the quiet halls of the castle as she squealed in her excitement. "Come, come, come, come!" she cried, while Elsa tried to shush her. When Anna saw the snowman in the ballroom, she couldn't contain herself any longer. "It's magical, it's magical!" She only got happier when Elsa created a smooth surface of ice for them to skate over. Sliding clumsily toward the snowman, Anna giggled in delight. "This is awesome!"
Elsa skated smoothly over to the snowman, gesturing towards it proudly. "Check it out!" She then slid excitedly behind the snowman, putting on a goofy voice. "Hi, I am Olaf, and I love a warm hug!"
Anna wondered why the snowman only loved a singular hug, but pondered for just a moment before stumbling over to the snowy figure and giving it a tight cuddle. "I love you, Olaf."
The princesses played together for hours in their isolated Winter wonderland, sliding down mounds of magical snow, making snow angels and had a snowball fight. After a few games, Elsa created a pile of snow which Anna climbed on. She ran up it and jumped, shouting "Catch me!" to her sister.
Elsa created another snow mound, which Anna landed on safely. "Gotcha!" she spoke triumphantly.
Anna kept running and jumping, chanting "Once again! Once again!" as Elsa created a series of mounds and pillars for her to land on, each one taller than the last. Anna began going too fast though, and Elsa couldn't keep up with her pace.
Elsa started worrying that she wouldn't be fast enough to catch her sister. She spoke oddly politely for someone so frantic. "Please wait! Slower!" she called, however Anna wasn't paying attention. She leapt off a tall mound, right as Elsa slipped on her own ice. "Anna!" she cried in horror. Trying to make another soft, snowy pillow for Anna to land on, she misaimed and accidentally struck her in the head.
Elsa got up hurriedly and dashed over to Anna, who had landed on some soft snow. Elsa looked at her cautiously, watching a strand of her hair turn white. Frightened, Elsa called for her parents. "Mama! Father!" She then scooped little Anna up in her arms. In her terror, she couldn't control her powers. Thick, jagged ice made its way along the floor and up the walls of the ballroom. It even knocked over Olaf. Elsa then tried to calm the unconscious ball in her arms. "It's OK Anna, I have…" but her attempt at being soothing failed, since she couldn't work out what she had.
At that moment, the king and queen burst through the doors of the ballroom, ice cracking as they did so. "Elsa, what have you done?" the king boomed. He threw a frustrated glance to the queen as he motioned towards Elsa. "It is the source!"
The queen ignored her husband's annoyance as she dashed over to take Anna from the grip of her other daughter. Elsa spoke hurriedly through her sobs, "It was an accident!" She then threw a concerned glance to her sister. "It's a shame, Anna," she uttered, sorrow deep in her voice.
Touching a hand to Anna's forehead, the queen became concerned. "Here is the cold" she noted, pointing to a specific part of Anna's head.
The king's tone turned dark, fear written in his features. "I know… where it should go."
The king rifled frantically though dusty old tomes, quickly finding the one he needed. He pulled out a map, showing a place of ancient and mysterious magic. Quickly, the stable hands gave them two horses. The queen kept Anna tight in her grasp, while Elsa rode with her father, a trail of ice following them all the way to the mysterious valley.
The family didn't notice the small, blond orphan they passed in their rush. He was with his pet reindeer, struggling to keep a small block of ice on his little sled. He watched the trail of ice left behind after the horses stormed by. "EIA?" he expressed, shocked and amazed.
He got on his little reindeer's back, riding along at a quickened pace. "Hover, Sven!" he instructed. In that moment, Sven tucked his legs under his body while staying mid-air. He was able to hover faster than he could run, so he flew after the mysterious figures that had left ice in their wake.
The two youngsters hid behind a rock where they could watch what was going on without being seen. "Please help, my daughter!" the strange man pleaded with rocks. He must have been mad. In that moment, the rocks all around the valley rolled towards the new arrivals who stood in the centre. They unravelled, revealing themselves to be trolls.
"Idiots?" the boy wondered aloud. Indeed, these weren't trolls, just the local idiots who hid themselves in carpets of moss. The rock they were hiding behind unrolled, revealing itself to be another idiot.
"Shush!" the idiot said, straining her ears and craning forward. "I'm trying to listen to!" she exclaimed, pointing at the situation before them. Sven licked the side of her face, causing her to look at them both. "Cuties," the idiot cooed. "I'm going to." This left the young boy worried about the idiot's intentions, because she never finished her sentence.
The grand idiot approached the royal family, taking Elsa's little hand in his own. He addressed her with mysterious initials. "H.E.," he acknowledged, nodding his head at her. He then addressed the king. "Cursed with birth control?" he inquired, referring to the young princess before him.
The king nodded affirmatively. "Eni, and it's to get stronger." The grand idiot nodded again, then looked to the other princess, still in her mother's arms.
He reached out to the child. "Give it to me," he said to the queen. She thought his advances were a little inappropriate considering the situation, before she realised he was referring to her daughter. She lowered the bundle in her arms so he could inspect Anna. He placed his hand on her restful head for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "You are lucky that it is not so easy to change the manager. The manager can not be sure."
The king had no idea what the idiot was going on about, but in that moment, he was the only one he could trust with the fate of his daughters. "Just do the right thing" he told the idiot, wondering what this strange man had in store for them.
The idiot cast a string of magic from Anna's head to the space before him. He was looking through Anna's memories of her magical time with Elsa. He explained his intentions to the best of his ability. "I recommend getting rid of all magic, the magic of memories sure... But do not worry, I'll let them have fun." Indeed, before their very eyes, the idiot drained the magic from Anna's memories. But true to his word, he did let them have fun.
When he was done, he put the memories back in Anna's head and smiled wide. "It's great!" he shouted, his change in mood unfitting to the situation.
Elsa was, as per usual, confused by the situation at hand. She somehow hadn't realised that the idiot had been altering Anna's memories and not her own. Perplexed, she asked "But I know I have power?"
The king proudly slapped his daughter's shoulder in an uncharacteristic display of affection. "It's the best," he beamed at her.
The grand idiot drew Elsa's attention to his magic, which he was swirling around in front of them. "See, Elsa, this power will increase. Natural Beauty is also a big risk. You need to learn to manage. Fear is the enemy." It seemed what he was displaying was a grim depiction of Elsa's future. She possessed a great natural beauty, which people would attack her for. She gasped at the horror before her, not understanding why people would want to attack her for being pretty.
The king held Elsa's shoulder defensively. "We do not defend. They can learn to work with it, I bet.
Until then, we'll lock the door. We need to limit contact with people and keep all the hidden powers ... and Anna." And so it was. From that day on, the people had to learn how to work with Elsa's extreme beauty, while she had to learn to manage her looks and her powers. All while keeping it a secret and hiding Anna.
As time went on, the sisters grew apart. They were no longer allowed to spend time together. This didn't stop Anna, however, who was always determined to get Elsa out of her room. She would often stand outside Elsa's door and talk, sometimes even sing to her through the thick wood.
On one such day, she knocked with her usual 'rat-tat tat-tat tat' rhythm. "Elsa? Did you build a snowman?" Elsa didn't reply, and after a moment, Anna continued her merry tune. "Come, come play." Hopeful, she sung on. "I can see you later, outside the door." Seeing that her attempts were failing, she tried to amuse Elsa, despite the door between them. "This is the way you move!" she sung, imitating Elsa's walk in a silly fashion.
Trying again, Anna tried thinking of other ways to get a response. She became philosophical. "See, what is the key to friendship? Now we do not. So I would say-" she puffed out her chest in confidence. "You would like to build a snowman." She then frowned and whispered into the keyhole "It should not be a snowman."
Anna finally got a reply from Elsa, but it wasn't the one she was looking for. "Go, Anna!" was Elsa's command.
Anna hung her head, saddened by the rejection. "Bye bye," she hummed dejectedly.
Later, the king went into Elsa's room, trying to offer her strategies to keep her powers under wraps. He slid a glove on her hand as he tried to reassure her. "Okay, right here." He clasps her gloved hand in both of his. "See?" he spoke lovingly while attempting to give her advice. "Hide."
She gave him a dumbfounded look. "It is not." But, after her moment passed, she understood. They spoke part of their new mantra together. "Do not display it." The king smiled at his daughter, and she tentatively smiled back.
As the years passed, Anna needed to find ways to entertain herself in her newfound loneliness. She took to reading, and sometimes mentioned her stories to Elsa through the door. One day, she read a particularly exciting tale about Bigfoot, and instantly rushed to Elsa's door with an amazing idea. She knocked the door in her characteristic little way, just like always, before proudly expressing her idea.
"Would you like to build a Yeti?" she asked. As usual, Elsa didn't reply, so she continued to sing to herself as she wandered around the castle. "Cycling the hall we-" she was cut off as she crashed her bike into a suit of armour. A thought then occurred to her, "I think someone is late!" Her eyes widened at what she had just done. "I have spoken!" she remarked, as if it were a great feat.
Moving into the painting room, she walked up to one of the walls and rubbed it. "Walls," she noted. She then looked up to a painting of Joan of Arc. "In the network, John!" she enthused, giving the painting a wink. Joan's only response was what seemed to be a disapproving stare at the child who had just called her John.
Anna then moved to other parts of the castle, eventually lying on the floor under a grandfather clock. She begun musing over mundane thoughts. "Only some, or all of these obstacles are for him. It is also part of audit hours." Bored, she followed the clock's pendulum with her eyes, mimicking its sound by clicking her tongue in time.
Elsa was backed into a corner of her bedroom, parents looking at the ice she had created on the wall in horror. "The intervention makes it worse," the king reasoned. But Elsa was not one for reason.
She begun to rebuttal "And I'm not-" yet was cut off by her father reaching out for her. "Do not touch me!" she yelled as she shrank away from him. "I do not want to hurt you." Her parents looked at her, loving eyes full of concern for their daughter. She was daft, she always had been, but now she wouldn't even let her own flesh and blood give her a reassuring pat. It was a tragedy.
A few years later, the king and queen were going on a trip to another country. They'd mentioned something about a cousin and a wedding, but weren't too clear on the details. Anna raced past Elsa's door, pausing for only a moment before shaking her head and continuing to dash to her parents as they were getting ready to depart. She hugged them while smiling warmly. "I'll see you in your hour of need," she assured them.
As they were leaving with their supplies for their trip, the king and queen encountered Elsa who curtsied timidly. She noticed their cases, realisation welling up in her eyes. "Are you going?" she asked, dazed and shy.
The king had told her they'd be leaving a few times now, but it seemed like it had taken until now for her to finally comprehend that meant they would be gone for a while. The king, having tired of explaining everything to her several times, was simple and gruff. "Yes, Elsa." He couldn't believe she was the one who'd be taking the crown in the future.
Unfortunately, that time would come much sooner than the king had anticipated. He and his wife were lost in a tragic storm which struck their ship on its journey. When word reached Arendelle that the king and queen had passed, they held a service in their memory. Anna attended the ceremony alone. Still dressed in her funeral clothes, she approached Elsa's door for the first time in years. Not knowing how to knock, she simply tapped it three times.
"Elsa?" she called through the door, her voice thick with emotion. "I know there are people who are looking. Some say it is 'thinking,' and know you try." She leaned into the door while singing in her melancholy. "At this point, I'm right. Yeah, you got me, oh…" Anna slid down the door, before pulling a bag filled with McDonald's burgers and fries from her cloak. She mused over a burger which she serenaded. "I'm lovin' it, you and I." She slid a box of fries under the door for Elsa. "Yes we do…" She hesitated before stating her request. "Would you like to build a snowman corporation?"
On the other side of the door, Elsa had frozen her entire bedroom. Snowflakes hung motionless in the air. She leaned her back against the door, sadly twirling a fry in her fingers as she considered her sister's proposal. She would have loved to build a snowman corporation with Anna, if only she had the mental capacity to maintain such an operation. That, and if she didn't need to keep hiding her immense beauty and weird icy snow powers. Alas, things couldn't change, and the Arendelle Snowman Corporation could never exist. She took the rest of her fries and clutched onto them as she buried her face in her knees. She could never leave her bedroom, she could never take on any endeavours with Anna, and she would never have a snowman corporation.