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The Girl and the Ice Queen

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Chapter Three

10:00PM, at the Ice Queen's palace...

The girl sprinted into the throne room, hands cupped around her mouth.

"Helloooooo!" She hollered. "Ice Queen? Are you home?!" The girl swivelled around, searching her surroundings for the blonde in question. "Ice Queen! I have a question I kind of really need to ask you!"

The annoyed queen stepped out of a side room, her facial expression displaying an obvious contempt for being disturbed at this time of night.

"You again?" she sighed. "What do you want?"

"Hi!" The girl exclaimed, now hunching over and gasping for air. "I'm really sorry to be bothering you right now, and I know this might sound weird... but could I really quickly ask for your name?"

"My name?" parroted the Ice Queen.

"Yeah, if you don't mind?" The exhausted redhead sprawled herself out across the icy floor, appreciating its coldness through the back of her hood.

"You ran the entire way up here... just to ask for my name?" Disbelief was evident in the Queen's voice.

"Well, I wasn't exactly running the entire time." The girl admitted, chest heaving. "I managed to hitch a ride on Marshmellow's back for that last stretch of mountain, which is crazy steep I'd like to add. And did you have to make so many stairs leading up to your palace? My quads are dying over here."

"Marshmellow?" The Ice Queen paced a circle around the girl, her arms crossed and her icy heels clack clack clacking on the similarly icy floor. "Who is Marshmellow?"

The redhead laughed. "Oh, he's that giant snow golem you have wandering around."

A pause ensued, and the Ice Queen's gaze narrowed.

"What? Are you certain?"

The girl rose to her feet, having finally caught her breath. "Yeah. Actually, he's probably still outside right now." She skipped over to the Ice Queen's balcony and peered over the edge.

"Yep. Still there," she confirmed, waving wildly to something down below.

The Ice Queen briskly followed suit, her jaw dropping upon seeing her colossal snow golem staring up at them. And waving back.

"That thing is nothing but a lifeless animated pile of snow." She said, dumbstruck. "I created it for the sole purpose of keeping visitors away. How on earth did you manage this?"

"He's just a real softie, once you get to know him." The redhead grimaced. "...Though I'll admit he did send me back to the church infirmary a couple times first."

"I see. This is very interesting." The Ice Queen turned to lean backward on the balcony. "But I digress. You came up here to learn my name, correct? May I ask why?"

"Well..." The redhead rubbed the back of her head. "I might have an assignment due tomorrow for my Bardic Storytelling course... that I might possibly have completely forgotten even existed up until now." She glanced over at the Ice Queen sheepishly. "Aaaand I might have been writing about... uh, you? And I found really quickly that it's super awkward trying to write a story about someone whose name you don't even know. So... I came up here to ask."

A pause ensued.

"Really?" the Ice Queen asked.

"Yep," the girl replied lamely. "And I'll probably have to stay up all night long to get the thing done in time."

"No no. You are writing a story about... me?"

"Maybe?" The redhead's already-red face flushed an ever darker shade of red.

"Fine," The Ice Queen laughed. "I can't for the life of me imagine why you'd want to write about me of all people, but very well. My name is Elsa. E-L-S-A."

"Elsa," parroted the redhead, giddy with excitement. "That's a nice name. Really rolls off the tongue." The girl planted a boot on the balcony railing. "Well! I gotta go. It's a long way back to Arendelle from here and I'd better get started. See ya Elsa!"

And before the blonde even knew what happened, the redhead had clambered over the railing and jumped off, beginning a precarious freefall several hundred metres downward to the snowy turf down below. A split second passed before the Ice Queen flourished her hand, successfully conjuring a snowy nimbus to cushion the fall of the questionably sane redhead.

"You are absolutely full of surprises," the Ice Queen chuckled to herself, before sending the cloud flying back towards civilization.

I have the utmost respect now for anyone who can manage update anything on a consistent schedule.