Anna was sitting in the front of the sled next to Kristoff, glaring straight ahead with her arms. Her stare was so intense that Sven kept looking behind him every few minutes to reassure himself that he wasn't the target of Anna's ire. In the two hours of their trip so far, Anna hadn't said a word to Elsa, Sera, or Olaf, who were all set up in the bed of the sleigh. Olaf kept challenging Sera to thumb wars and was asking her questions about what summer was like in Eskadia. Sera kept trying to include Elsa in the conversation, but she only gave short, one-word answers.
After another hour passed in this fashion, Olaf suddenly gasped and jumped up, pointing across the horizon. "There's Elsa's ice palace!" he yelled, bouncing up and down as he gestured at the distant structure. "I didn't know it was still there."
Anna huffed and crossed her arms tighter while everyone else turned to look at the palace.
Olaf stared at the structure for a few more seconds, sighing happily. "I always forget how pretty it is, especially in the sunlight." Then his face turned thoughtful, and he waddled over to Sera. "Did you ever go visit it?"
Sera hummed in response as she nodded. "Yes, I went to look at it when I was on my own for a few days after I first arrived in Arendelle. It was beautiful, but I think living there would have been very lonely." She gazed at the palace shimmering in the morning light for another moment before a wiry smile broke across her face. "And very impractical. There wasn't even a bed. Or a bathroom." She leaned over to nudge Elsa's shoulder, grinning when Elsa gave her a small smile.
"I wasn't thinking very clearly when I made it," Elsa said, fiddling with the end of her braid. "It was kind of a rushed decision."
"Yeah, it's a good thing you don't make those anymore," Anna snapped. She scoffed and sat back hard against the bench of the sled. "Because you learned from that and now carefully weigh every decision you make and how it's going to impact other people."
A heavy silence fell over the group for several minutes. When Elsa finally worked up the nerve to respond, her voice was quiet but firm. "Anna, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the voice and about how following it threw everything off, but I had to do this. I don't know how to explain to you that this wasn't really a choice."
Anna rolled her eyes and kicked her foot against the wood of the sled in front of her. "There's always a choice, Elsa. A choice to reach out or not, to cut someone off or not, to affect other people's lives or not. And it's pretty clear which choice you always make."
Elsa's face fell and she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, but didn't say anything in response.
Sera frowned, reaching out to squeeze Elsa's shoulder before shooting Anna an intense look. "That's not fair, Anna. You don't know everything about why she made those decisions."
"You're right, I don't," Anna said, letting out a short bark of a laugh and throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Because she never tells me anything!"
Elsa kept her eyes down, her face hardening even as tears pooled in her eyes. Anna looked back to say something else, stopping and rolling her eyes instead when she saw the determined set of Elsa's jaw. She jerked back around and slid down in her seat, muttering angrily under her breath.
A few more moments of tense silence passed until Olaf let out a heavy sigh. He moved to sit next to Elsa, slumping against the side of the sled as he sat back down. "This is why I don't want to grow up," he said, tilting his head to the side and propping it up in one of his hands. "Everything gets so sad and confusing, and everyone ends up mad at each other."
"There are good parts, too," Sera said softly, looking between Anna and Elsa as she spoke. "Like meeting new people and opportunities to mend broken relationships."
Olaf sighed again and looked up at the sky, watching the snowflakes that were beginning to fall. "I hope this will all start to make sense after we get to the forest, because it sure doesn't right now."