For the record, Elsa had just thrown a snowball at her sister. It was a completely innocuous situation.
Elsa had claimed she wanted Anna's help experimenting with her magic due to Annaa's creativity, but there was another, unspoken reason – namely, that the two of them had stayed up late the previous night gushing about their childhoods, and now Elsa wanted to relive those experiences.
And Anna certainly didn't fail to deliver. Her first suggestion for an "experiment" was to see how much snow Elsa could create all at once. Elsa had pointed out that she had covered the entire country in snow, so filling up the whole study up to the ceiling would be like nothing to her. And then both girls' eyes lit up and a few seconds later every inch of what had once been empty space was now occupied by fluffy whiteness. Elsa unfroze the giant cube of snow a minute later, and as per usual nothing in the snow's wake was so much as damp.
(Of course, from outside, all Fritz heard was the sound of furniture banging around and then the queen's voice asking, "Are you wet?" Fritz started to press his ear to the wood, but he had to stop when other passing staff members gave him funny looks.)
The sisters' experimenting was then sidetracked via an impromptu snowball fight, but eventually they got back on track when Anna asked to see how many varieties of ice-clothing Elsa could conjure up. This led to the creation of a long string of unique ice-shoes, ice-skirts, and so forth, all topped off with Anna's animated reaction when Elsa briefly put an ice-dress on her. She flailed around the room hollering, "Cold! Cold! Take the dress off! Take it off!"
(Outside the door, Fritz adjusted his collar. Was it just him or was this uniform too tight?)
The whole ordeal culminated in Anna wearing an icy recreation of a certain prince's dress jacket so she could run around saying, "Ooh, look at me, I've got giant sideburns on my head because I'm overcompensating, and my twelve brothers are probably spanking me so hard right now!"
(Back outside, Fritz raised an eyebrow.)
Eventually all the zaniness settled down and Elsa seated herself over at her writing desk to explore the more subtle nuances of her magic.
"Well, that was, um, highly informative," Elsa said once Anna's uncontrollable laughter finally ceased. "But I've got one more trick I've been meaning to try." With a small flourish of her hands, Elsa conjured up an ice crystal in her palm. Then, by concentrating, she caused it to slowly, gradually morph into snow. The crystal lost its shape and fell into a heap on the table. Elsa concentrated harder on the snow pile, even straining her forehead muscles – as if that had anything to do with using magic – but the snow remained snow.
Elsa sighed. "I was really hoping that would work."
"Hoping what would work?"
"I was trying to make water." Elsa bowed her head in defeat. "Ever since I was little, I've always thought drenching everyone I touch would be a step up from freezing them to death."
"Elsa, you know you don't do that anymore." Anna took hold of her hand to illustrate the point.
"Still… Ugh, it doesn't make sense!" Elsa escaped Anna's grip. "I can make ice and snow and even snow clouds like Olaf's flurry. Why can't I make water?"
"It's magic – It doesn't have to make sense," shrugged Anna. "I mean, why did I have to get my memories wiped to stop my head from freezing? That's just the way it works."
"I guess you're right," said Elsa. "Looks like my magic is only ever cold…"
Anna's eyes suddenly lit up again, signaling another idea taking hold in her mind. "Ooh, y'know what? Conjure up another snowball. I wanna try something."
Elsa complied, but she gave her sister a quizzical look.
"Check out what I found while we were horsing around!" Anna held up a small, wooden, boxlike object proudly. "Matches! They were in one of your desk drawers. Didn't this desk used to belong to Dad? These were probably his for when he smoked." She made a "yuck" face at the memory.
"Wait," realized Elsa, "you're not going to-?" But one of the matchsticks was out of the box and lit before she could even finish. Elsa's eyes fell on the flames. Her entire body tensed.
"See, you said you can't make water." Anna swiped the snowball from Elsa's hand and held it under the flame. "But then I remembered how Olaf started melting back when he saved me from Hans and I realized, duh, you totally can make water-" As she spoke, the snowball began changing into a puddle and dripping onto the desk. "-you just have to let yourself get warm."
"You've proved your point." Elsa wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. "Now put the fire out." Anna absently swished the match around with her fingers, and each time Elsa's eyes followed the burning tip's movements exactly.
"See, that's probably why you can't make water," said Anna. "Every time you start to get warm, you flip out about it."
"Put the fire out."
Anna rolled her eyes. "Come on, you put out a whole forest fire once. One teeny little matchhead won't hurt you. See?"
It was at this point Anna made the mistake of moving the flame closer to Elsa's face.
On the other side of the door, Fritz heard the queen's voice scream, "I said put it out!" followed by the sounds of the princess's far less coherent shrieks. Oh, that was it. He didn't care if it got him fired – Fritz was seeing what the heck was going on in there. He tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked tight.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" came a frantic voice from behind the door.
"I can't feel my fingers!" came another, far more frantic one.
This startled Fritz enough that he made an effort the break the door down. Said effort ended with Fritz on the floor nursing an injured shoulder.
Just as he returned to his feet, the door swung itself open and Fritz found himself face-to-face with the object of his deepest desires. It was almost enough to send Fritz back to the floor.
"Fetch hot water!" the queen ordered. "Quickly!"
Fritz scampered off, but he was new to the castle, so it probably took him several minutes longer than the queen would have liked to finally return to the study with a steaming bucket.
"I'm here! I'm here! What's going on?" Fritz panted out, his voice reaching a pitch only attainable by the rare throat of a seventeen-year-old boy who hasn't gone through puberty yet.
Queen Elsa ignored him and immediately grabbed her sister's hand to dunk it in the water.
In a futile attempt to understand what the heck was going on, Fritz glanced around the room. His eyes fell on a small matchbox and a handful of accompanying matches, all covered in ice and scattered across the floor.
The queen turned to her sister. "Can you move your fingers?"
"Elsa, I'm fine, you just startled me-"
"We need to get you to a doctor! Ugh, I'm such an idiot, this is all my-"
"It-was-not-your-fault-and-I-am-totally-fine!" the princess said through gritted teeth. She wiggled all the fingers of her afflicted hand, almost defiantly.
"But-"
"Trust me, I know what getting my heart frozen feels like. You just nipped my fingers."
Granted he hadn't known her for very long, but Fritz had never seen the queen lose her composure like this. Frankly, he wanted to give her a hug, but something told him that would be a bad idea.
The queen seemed on the verge of tears, her lips trembling. "I'm sor-"
"Don't apologize," sighed the princess. "This was my fault, Elsa. You clearly have some kind of phobia of heat, and I just shoved some into your face like a complete jerk."
The queen hesitated before saying, "Alright, I... I'm glad you're not hurt."
After that, the sisters hugged and tried to calm each other down, and then the queen announced she was turning in early for the night and trudged out of the room. This left the princess alone with Fritz.
"Excuse me, Your Highness," he said, "but is it always this, err, dramatic around here?"
"Actually, I'd say anything that doesn't end with Arendelle trapped in eternal winter is pretty calm for Elsa."
Fritz gulped. He was beginning to wonder what he had gotten himself into. Really, he knew he ought to follow after the queen, what with him being her bodyguard and all, but Fritz felt he needed a minute to compose himself.
"I know all about your little crush, by the way," the princess suddenly said, shooting him a knowing smirk.
Aaaaaaand there went Fritz's composure.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" he got out, his voice going all squeaky.
"Oh come on, it's written all over your face!" The princess pointed a finger at the offending face, every inch of which was currently bright crimson. "Look, it's cute and all, and I hate to disappoint you, but I already have a boyfriend. Sorry, that's the way it goes."
And with that, the princess skipped out the door.
Fritz stared at her as she left. He shook his head slowly, his face meeting his palm.
After that, Fritz went to go find the queen. On his way to her bedroom, he happened to run into the Admiral again – a tall, broad-shouldered man whose judgmental stare asked, "Aren't you supposed to be guarding the queen?" without his mouth having to say anything.
"Oh, A-A-Admiral!" squeaked Fritz, adjusting the buttons on his uniform. "The queen is, err, just going to bed. I've been meaning to ask you, does she get a separate bodyguard for night shifts or…?"
"Haven't gotten around to hiring one yet," said the Admiral. "But we can't leave the queen unprotected all night, now can we? You'll just have to keep at it for the next few days." He gave Fritz a pat on the back, managing to hit the exact part of Fritz's shoulder that was bruised.
"Buh-But-But when do I get to sleep?"
"I'm sure you'll work something out." And with that, the Admiral disappeared down the hall, leaving Fritz alone once again.
Fritz fumed internally all the way up the stairs to the royal bedchambers, where he opened the queen's door a crack to find her already sound asleep. A beam of lamplight illuminated the still form of the queen, halfway under her quilts and adorned in a nightgown of the same color and texture as her usual dress.
It matched her dress? Holy moly, that was adorable. Fritz was tempted to continue staring at the sleeping girl before him, but even Fritz could tell that would be crossing way over the thin line between "endearing crush" and "skeevy stalker." Reluctantly, he closed the door back.
Now Fritz was subjected to the new and exciting experience of staying up past his bedtime in a totally silent, vacant hallway for hours on end.
An assassin could come for her at any moment, Fritz tried to convince himself. Even though rationally, he knew this was true, after ten minutes with no murder attempt, his brain was having trouble buying it. Not that Fritz knew it'd been ten minutes, of course. There was no clock in his range of vision, so for all he knew he could've been standing there for ten hours. And even if there had been one, knowing the time probably would've just made this even more maddening.
Shockingly enough, Fritz's thoughts drifted back towards the queen, specifically her aesthetics. Despite those aesthetics now occupying the brunt of his every thought, Fritz wasn't sure he lusted after Queen Elsa, exactly, in the same way an art lover doesn't exactly want to smear their grubby finger prints all over the Mona Lisa. Besides, he figured, it would probably be too cold to-
Stop thinking about that, scolded the tiny, logical part of Fritz's brain. It's never going to happen.
Great. So now not only did Fritz have to stay up all night on the lookout for nonexistent assassins, he had to go the entire night without thinking about that. If Momma only knew what had been going through her boy's head, she would be so ashamed.
Fine, fine, Fritz told himself, think about something else. Anything else. Just... whatever you do, don't… fall… aslee…
The bedroom door creaked open, and out crept a gorgeous woman with creamy skin and hair like silver.
"Ohhh, Fritz," she cooed, wrapping her arms around him. "I can't believe I never noticed you before. You're so much more attractive than my sister."
"Yeah. I am…"
"Just look at us," giggled Elsa. "All alone in this dark hallway… just the two of us… Nobody else around…" She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "We could do anything we want…"
"Yeah…"
"We could even… sing a romantic duet!"
"Yaaaay!"
All of a sudden, the two of them were atop the castle's clock tower, dancing the robot and singing in unison:
"Our mental synchronization,
Can have but one explanation."
"You-"
"And I-"
"Were-"
"Just-"
"Meant to-"
"I killed her, I killed her-!"
Fritz's eyes shot open. He was back, alone, in the bedchambers hallway, slumped against the wall. Well, that sure had been a spooky dream, but like his momma always said, dreams weren't real, so they couldn't hurt-
"I killed her, I'm burning, she's dead-!"
That dispelled Fritz's grogginess.
"Queen Elsa, are you okay-?" Fritz flung open the bedroom door and was greeted by a bolt of magic whizzing by his ear. It struck the far wall behind him, freezing the wallpaper in a thick blanket of ice.
That could have been his face.
This was Fritz's first encounter with the queen's magic, he realized. In all honesty, he'd almost forgotten she even had ice powers, since in his eyes that was, err, not her most notable feature. Though he was ashamed to admit it to himself, Fritz was half-considering fleeing in terror and finding someone braver, but then he risked another peek in the doorway. The same facial features he had grown infatuated with were now contorted by fear into horrible mockeries of themselves. Her eyes were shut tight, but you could still practically see the pain behind them, and on top of all that the queen was spasming uncontrollably, coating random sections of her bedroom with glacier-thick ice. It struck Fritz for the first time just how insanely young the new queen was.
Fritz took a deep breath and charged inside.
It felt like he'd just stepped into the North Pole. The poor boy made a mental note that so long as he was the queen's bodyguard, he ought to dress in heavier clothing, and then he skidded clumsily over the skating rink of a floor towards the queen's bed.
"She's dead, I'm burning…" the queen repeated, quieter this time. Fritz swore he could hear her heart thumping in her chest.
There were vapors fuming off her skin like it was dry ice.
Here goes nothing. Fritz exhaled through his nose, then grabbed the queen by the shoulders to give her a good shake.
"Queen Elsa? Queen Elsa, you have to wake-"
His hands were on fire. This is how Fritz made the discovery that, if it's cold enough, ice can burn just as badly as flames. In fact, it was actually his howls of pain that finally woke the queen from her spell.
To her credit, the queen managed to deduce what was going on almost as soon as she opened her eyes, and every last speck of ice in the room vanished shortly afterward. She took another several minutes to sit up in bed and wait for her breathing to slow.
When he judged her calm enough to speak, Fritz asked, "Your Majesty, are you alright?"
"Are you alright?" The queen gave Fritz a look that was equal parts concerned and horrified. "I didn't…?"
"No, no, I'm fine," said a flustered Fritz. "And, I mean, it's my job, so even if I wasn't, I knew the risks when I…"
"What happened?" the queen asked, her voice a whisper.
"You were screaming in your sleep, and you started shooting ice everywhere. And you were, um, spasming a lot, too."
She stared at her own palms. "I… I had no idea. If I had known I was… Well, at any rate, I am so, so sorry for what I just put you through-"
"Don't worry about me – You're the one who should be…" began Fritz, flustered once again. "Um, I know what I'll do. If you think you can sit tight for a minute, I'll go get a physician to-" As he spoke, Fritz headed for the door, but he flinched quite spectacularly when the frame suddenly found itself sealed by a wall of ice.
"No." Fritz spun around to find the queen scowling at him. "You tell no one about this. Understand?"
Fritz nodded pitifully.
"Good. I'm going to try and go back to sleep. I'll deal with this in the morning when I'm not half-awake." Elsa buried herself beneath the covers before adding, "Stay by my bedside and wake me immediately if it starts to happen again."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Not another word was exchanged between the two the entire rest of the night.
It occurred to Fritz that Elsa hadn't dispelled the ice over the doorway, meaning he was basically trapped in here until she decided to let him out, and she'd already fallen back asleep. About two seconds after this realization, Fritz also realized that he really, really needed to use the restroom.
Fritz stood in agonized silence, watching the queen's chest rise and fall much more steadily than before. It occurred to him that from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, Queen Elsa had been the most beautiful thing Fritz had ever seen. And now she was also the most terrifying.
