That next four years were filled with so much joy and confusion for Anna, bother her mother and her father were beginning to spend more time with her, but Elsa, Elsa never seemed to want to play or build snowmen, no matter how many times she asked. Anna appeared to have it all, even if she had forgotten all about her friend from the mountains.
But then one day her mother and father informed her that they were both going away on a trip, to find something they desperately needed. Anna had overheard father saying that they needed to cure Elsa and Anna's breath had hitched. Elsa was sick! Was her only sister dying? Her big sister that had always been there for her couldn't leave, she couldn't die, Anna wouldn't let her, and Anna would protect her!
Anna had waited, ever so lonely, for them to come back and cure Elsa so they could be best friends again, but alas neither was to be made reality.
'Ellen?' Anna asked of her parlour maid when she entered the tapestry room that morning. When the maid put down the laundry she was carrying and came to sit by the little princess she asked the question on her mind. 'It has been weeks, forever, since mother and father left for the big wide world, when are they coming back?' she asked innocently but the maid would not reply and scurried away as though she didn't want to talk to her. Well that was odd.
'Do you ever miss your parents Joan?' Anna asked, looking up at her only friend. Her only friend was actually a painting of Joan of Arc, a fearsome warrior, who too had been so alone. 'I guess you didn't have to worry about sister rivalry huh?' she asked, and felt her cheekbones wet when she lay down to stare at the rest of the portraits and pictures around the room. There was her mother and father and Elsa as a baby. Another portrait and they were all their together, a time when there had been better circumstances, before Elsa had grown ill. Perhaps Elsa longed to protect Anna and that was why she didn't play with her no more? Maybe she was contagious?
Feeling sadness overcome her Anna climbed up from the chaise lounge and made her way to the kitchen for some chocolate. The sadness was an overwhelming emotion, climbing from her stomach all the way up her chest until it stuck there and threatened to suffocate her. Something bad was going to happen, she knew it. Her chest was too tight, and she had that feeling in the pit of her gut, something really bad was going to happen and she couldn't stop it, just as she couldn't stop the sobs in her throat and the tears in her eyes.
She rushed into the kitchen and stared at the cook until she delivered a piece of chocolate cake to the inconsolable princess.
'Something bad is going to happen Lena,' Anna told her friend the cook as she climbed up on the table and set her cake on her lap as she acquired a fork. 'I can feel it in my stomach, I feel lonelier than ever before. Where are my mother and father? I want them to come back so they can hug me tight and tell me everything's going to be okay,' she sobbed on the cook's uniform as she polished off her comfort food.
'Well sweetie I don't know if you've been told but…' the cook was cut off when trumpets sounded and when she raced into the main hall Elsa slowly made her way down the stairs, forever elegant, her expression as troubled as when their parents had left.
'Mother and father are back, Elsa, they have your cure!' Anna exclaimed as she raced for the double doors and the gates to the castle. 'Aren't you excited too?' Anna asked when she realised that Elsa wasn't following her as eagerly.
'Anna it's not them, they haven't come back. There isn't a cure,' Elsa spoke her first words to Anna in forever.
'There is Elsa, you have to believe in it, they'll make you all better and then we can be friends again and build snowmen until our hearts are content,' Anna said as she raced for the doors and threw them open, only to find faces filled with sadness and heavy hearts in the people who lived in her kingdom.
'Princess Elsa, Princess Anna, I am so sorry but your parents, they, they didn't make it,' the town crier told them and Anna knew, she knew he wasn't lying. Even without the pain etched in his face, the terror she'd felt before hadn't been ridiculous. Her parents were, they were, they were… gone. She was forever alone. No cure for Elsa, no mother, no father.
'Anna,' Elsa said and she felt a hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her.
'No!' Anna cried when she unfroze, tears rolling down her face. 'No don't touch me!' She screamed as she raced through the kingdom and out into the forest, the place where she and her father had built snowmen until their hands were numb and wouldn't work any longer.
#
'On this day we use this time to silently grieve for the wonderful king and queen we had rule over this land, and we pray that Queen Elsa will be able to control the powers she holds within her body, caused by her birth,' Pappy said as the trolls and Kristoff and Sven gathered around the clearing where he had first been found and where Pappy had cured and saved the life of an adorable little girl. A girl who had been struck by Elsa's powers.
'No!' A cry filled with so much pain reached his ears and Kristoff recognised it to be the voice of his one and only human friend, the Princess, Anna. She'd been told of her parents' death then. He heard a high pitched scream and then silence. He looked over at Pappy who winked at him knowingly. After all Kristoff could honour the king and queen better if he helped their daughter to overcome her pain couldn't he?
As silent as a mouse Kristoff crept through the trees that surrounded his home and out into the path that lead down to the bottom of the mountain. A path that lead to Anna. Anna was the kindest, most beautiful woman he had ever known, regardless of the fact that she was a princess and the ten year old Kristoff had been absolutely smitten. Now at the age of fourteen Kristoff didn't know how he would react to her back in his life after so long.
'Anna?' He called out as he raced down the hill and found her there crying, her head buried in the snow as though she could freeze away her pain and her tears and her agony. Unfortunately, he knew better. 'Hey Anna, it is okay, it's okay,' he said as he gathered her close and brushed her startling red hair back from her face.
'Don't touch me, get off me!' Anna said as she tried to push him away but he held firm.
'Anna it's me, Kristoff. We made snowmen together when we were ten?' He tried to remind her but she shook her head, until she looked up and saw his eyes.
'Kristoff, wow you've, you've really changed,' she said and he knew what she saw when she looked at him appraisingly. A strong, muscular man of fourteen with flowing fair locks and bright blue eyes. Human females found him irresistible whenever he went in to town to sell ice. She looked as though she did too.
'You too, when did you get so sad?'
'When Elsa started shutting me out, she doesn't love me anymore, and now that mother and father are gone… I, I don't have anybody. I'm all alone Kristoff,' she said as she buried her head his chest and sobbed noisily, not at all what he had expected of princess tears. Nevertheless, he hugged her tight to him and made shushing noises as he brushed the snow from her hair.
'No, no you're not Anna, you're never alone. We have each other, okay we have each other. I am always here for you; I have always been here for you. We are friends, let me be your friend,' Kristoff said as he held her at arm's length and wiped the tears that were persistently flowing down her bright red cheeks.
'Hold me close and don't let me go,' Anna told him and Kristoff found it to be an order he was going to follow out, as long as he could hold her forever. He liked the feeling of her in his arms.
'I will never let you go Anna,' he said and hugged her tighter to him.
