So in the heart of the desert, on the naked rind of the planet, in an isolation like that of the beginnings of the world, we built a village of men.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars
The ice and snow fly from my fingertips, but my heart is fiercely hot, exultant and free. I sing out to the night sky and create a snowman I haven't seen since my childhood. Since that day I have always been careful with my words. How can you speak when you mustn't feel? But now I am free and the verses slip easily from my lips, as easily as the power rushes through my body and leaps joyfully from my bare hands.
I race across a ravine and the bridge crystallizes in frozen fractals beneath every step. I never knew what I was capable of. The palace is far away from me, long since out of view. A forest and a mountainside lie between us. I am sure my icy footprints have melted in the waters of the bay. There is nothing left of me there.
Racing on a bridge made from my heart and hands alone, I am a streak of light, a shooting star between the yawning darkness below me and the deep night sky above.
I sing with triumph, with exhausted, incredulous relief. I am alone and free.
...
"Hah," Anna smiles helplessly, "She's a stinker."
That's about as far as her thinking takes her. Actually, her brain hasn't done much but replay the last minute of their interaction before the kingdom of Arendelle was abruptly re-introduced to their Queen, Miss Majesty Ice Queen of Secretdelle whose iciness is apparently more than just–
"Whoops, bitterness," Anna glances behind her quickly but her companion is busy muttering to his antlered buddy, something about sleds no doubt. Poor Kristoff is still suffering from the loss of his sled last night.
"Well!" Anna chirps, drawing the attention of Kristoff and the unusually precocious pack animal, Sven. "I guess it can't be too long now. I'm sure once I say I'm sorry she'll come back and defrost the kingdom. Yeah." Relying as usual on aggressive cheerfulness, Anna keeps talking to hide her misgivings. "And she'll definitely get you and Sven a new sled."
"All of this happened because of some guy you wanted to marry?" Kristoff asks curiously. Such royal drama, he thinks to himself. Even so, it is difficult for him to see how someone as genuinely nice if bossy as Anna could so completely set off the wrath of a sorceress.
There's a pause that's long enough to make Sven sneeze uncomfortably.
"I'm not sure," Anna says finally. She can't believe it, but she forgot about Hans. Now, far away from the palace with the world open around her, the promise of happiness that he represented at the time seems so less vital. The guilt is confusing. She's not sure now if she should be apologizing to Hans or to Elsa, or somehow to both. But then, her argument with Elsa had been about a lot more than the man she's in love with, or thought she was in love with. Anna tries not to wince and blithely continues to ignore the sinking feelings inside her.
I'm not bitter, Anna tells herself. I'm just mad. Aloud, she says, "I am her sister, after all. She should have just told me the truth."
Kristoff wisely says nothing. Only Sven has the privilege of snorting in agreement.
...
Man alone builds his isolation, but solitude cultivates a strange mood. Years of reading in the dark of my room have equipped me with a rich and deceptive language about loneliness. How often did I lose myself in another world so as to shut my ears to the plaintive voice on the other side of my door? I thought that the snow and ice had given me the clarity to finally be myself, alone on a mountaintop, as bright and untouchable as a star. But this palace must have rooms and by the next day it becomes unbearable walking past such vacant, stark spaces, no matter how beautifully clear and simple they seem.
Reveling in my self-assurance, I boldly push open the heavy ice doors that lead into the main hall of the first floor. No frantic stumbling through a door, I think smugly. "This will be the gallery," I announce to the crisp air. I twirl my fingers extravagantly in the air, sending forth a spray of snowflakes glittering like stars throughout the wide expanse of the hall. In another palace, this would be a ballroom, but I will have no dances here, no watchful judging eyes.
With a sweep of my arms, I fling open my heart and let the ice and snow fly from me. Spinning with the force of my power, still exhilarating even after raising a fortress of ice, I bow playfully to the room and slowly rise to see what I have created now.
Oh, Anna.
The first crack in my fortress has appeared and it starts in my heart.
She stands before me, her eyes still and always bright and hopeful. It's just a statue of ice, of course, and now abruptly I feel the difference in my palace of ice and the palace I left behind, the difference between lies and truth.
Disoriented, I look around me. The silence of my wonderland is vast and oppressive. I feel empty, the way I think the cold must feel to others. I glance back at my creation, who stands at the center of a sterile hall in a charade of a palace in the middle of nowhere, with only a coward for company.
"You shouldn't stand alone," I whisper. I am suddenly embarrassed by the sound of my voice. My hands lift slowly and the ice gently bleeds from my fingertips. I will make statues of mother and father. Then I will leave this room and shut the door. This is not a gallery. It is a memorial of a family I have lost forever.