"Place's not bad, Princess," Jack smirked. "I can call you Princess again, can't I?" He swung his staff out in front of him a little, arm limp. "I mean, you're not exactly Queen of Arendelle anymore."

Elsa didn't respond. Duh. She glided past him and headed up the stairs. Time to explore her castle. Even she didn't know just how much had been created during her explosion of power. It'd be nice, like picking your favorite room in a vacation home.

Jack went the opposite way, checking out the other side of the palace. He found a drawing room, but he knew Elsa wouldn't be receiving any guests. It had a sparkling couch, a couple of chairs, and even an ice chess game set out. The whole room looked remarkably similar to the one in Arendelle's castle. Elsa was an ace at chess, he remembered. Of course, they'd only played once.

"You're not doing it right." 14-year-old Elsa folded her arms, smirking at Jack as they sat across from each other in her family's drawing room. "I beat—hey! Jack!" He had his head resting against the arm of the chair. His eyes were closed.

Frost, feet propped on the table, sat up, shaking himself. "What? Huh?"

"Were you sleeping?" Elsa laughed.

"No, no, no way. Wide awake. Whose turn is it again?" Jack scanned the board. He scratched his head. "Well, this looks different."

"How long were you sleeping?"

Jack stretched. "I dunno. Couple minutes. Why?"

"A couple? I won the game!" Elsa sat back, grinning. "You weren't paying attention. You're really bad at this."

Jack chortled. "Yeah, right. You cheated while I was snoozing, didn't you?"

"A Princess doesn't cheat."

"Then how'd you beat me? I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but I'm smarter than you."

Elsa sat straight up in her chair. "You are not!"

But Jack was speaking at the same time she was. "Yeah, yeah, I am; I figured out how to make icicles on the floor before you did."

"That's because you've had your powers longer—and I don't use mine! You're the cheater!"

Jack copied her whine playfully. "Me? Who locked the door to the parlor when we were playing hide and seek?"

"I was afraid Anna would find me instead."

"She's at that summer house with your parents."

"Well…then…I forgot about that."

"Right." Jack rolled his eyes. He glanced sharply toward the window. "Hey, what's that over there?"

Elsa turned to look. "What? Where?"

There was a clattering sound. When she turned back to the board, all the pieces had mysteriously been whisked to the floor. Jack hooked the curve of his staff around his neck and turned it restlessly by the handle.

"Jack!"

He blinked those big blue eyes at her innocently. "Let's play something else."

Jack looked at the floor, blinking, mind far away. Shaking it off, he slipped out of the drawing room.

Going up a few floors, he discovered a bedroom, sort of like Elsa's back home, but bigger. She'd filled it with loads and loads of different furniture—a tea table, several chairs in different corners, a lounge seat, a snowflake-shaped window, an elegant but small canopy bed, and the words to her favorite lullaby in Norwegian were written on the ceiling above it.

It was definitely nicer than her room in Arendelle. More…Elsa. Everything was smooth and clear, with a touch of imperfection around the edges to make it endearing. But not a hint of fear—and the door to the chamber was wide open.

"You know, my mother used to sing to me every night." 17-year-old Elsa sat at the window seat, in her light blue nightgown. She looked at the hands in her lap, almost resentfully.

Jack, scanning the fresh snow he'd covered the kingdom in outside, glanced back at his friend. "Really?"

Elsa snorted very softly. "But she doesn't do it anymore."

"Yeah," Jack agreed, "but you're kinda old for that now, right?"

Elsa nodded absently. She didn't look up. "It was still comforting. Every single night. Right before I went to sleep. She'd say, 'Don't worry, Elsa. If you worry too long, you'll forget how to smile.'"

"That's true," Jack assured her teasingly. "Be a shame, too. You don't smile enough already."

Elsa rolled her eyes, but she didn't scowl at him. "Sometimes I wish I could go back to being a kid. I didn't have the whole kingdom to think about then."

"Hey, you've still got a few years." Jack shifted a little where he sat beside her, trying to get comfortable. On the other side of the window, the courtyard snow glittered in the moonlight. Not too shabby for an early winter. "You're not Queen yet."

Elsa stood up, restless. "And I wasn't stuck in this room all the time," she scoffed, as if he hadn't spoken. She'd been doing that more and more recently.

"What's wrong with your room?" Jack glanced around, lifting his eyebrows. "I mean, besides the fireplace."

"I need the fireplace. It gets cold."

"Thought the cold didn't bother you."

Elsa huffed. "And you never let me forget that, do you?" She took a pitcher of water from the mantle and put the fire out.

Jack yawned. "Isn't it about time you called it a night, Princess?"

"Why? Are you tired?" Elsa's hands fiddled nervously with the skirt of her nightgown, brushing off dirt that wasn't there.

"Nah, I don't get tired," Jack informed her. He yawned again and she grinned. Ignoring it, he repeated, "Seriously, what's the matter with your room? Not big enough?"

"Too big." Elsa sighed, sitting on her bed. "It's so empty, Jack. It's…" She hated admitting it. "Lonely."

"Not with me in here," Frost corrected.

"No," Elsa responded apologetically, loosening the ribbon in her braid just a little. She didn't like it pinching her when she slept. "Not with you in here."

"I see people with nowhere to go all the time." Jack paced around the ground in front of the fireplace, playing with the tendrils of smoke coming from the drenched wood, whisking his staff back and forth through it. "You're lucky you got a nice, comfy room like this all to yourself."

"You do?" Elsa sat up straighter, troubled. "I suppose you're right. How many? People with nowhere to go, I mean."

"Well." Jack paused. "It's just one," he confessed, "but he's pretty sad. Talks to a reindeer."

Elsa laughed. "Still, that sounds like much more fun than being stuck here."

"Maybe." Jack winked at her. "That's why you have me. You'd never have any fun without me."

"I think I'd manage to find something to do."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like…like—"

"I'm listening."

"Let me finish." Elsa thought about it for a moment. "Well, I could catch up on my geometry studies for a change."

Jack made an animalistic noise, horrified. "You call that fun? You need me more than I thought."

Chuckling, Elsa flopped backward on her bed and he reached the end of it, folding his arms over one of the bedposts. She squinted up at him and he crossed his eyes.

"Isn't it about time you went…wherever it is you go at night, Jack?" Elsa said, voice layered with amusement. "You've been at the castle all day."

"Eh, I can wait," shrugged Jack. "Got plenty of time to kill."

"You aren't afraid of the dark, are you?" Elsa glanced at the partly cloudy sky out the window, raising an eyebrow at him.

"What? No way." Of course not. So what if the first thing he remembered was infinite blackness. Everywhere. No one around, no sounds, just him and the darkness. "What about you? You should've been asleep like two hours ago."

Elsa looked away. "I'm not sleepy." She was fighting a yawn too. He could see it.

"Come on." Jack set his staff against the footboard. "What's goin' on?"

Elsa rolled onto her side to look up at him. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"You say that every day." Jack drummed his fingers on the wood. "You're never fine."

Elsa's eyes drifted from him, much to his dismay, and settled on the canopy. "I keep having nightmares."

"So you figure not sleeping'll help." Jack turned his back to her so that he could rest his elbows against the bedframe beside his staff. "You know that's not gonna work, Elsa."

"It's better than sleeping through them," she argued.

"Just…do what I do." Jack suggested.

"Blow snow onto the merchant when he isn't looking?"

Jack chortled. "No. Think of good stuff. Right before you fall asleep." He glanced over his shoulder at her. She had rolled onto her other side, so he couldn't see her face, but he knew she was listening. "They're just bad dreams, Princess. They can't hurt you."

Elsa blew a stray bang out of her eyes. "Maybe not." She sat up. "You really should get some rest, Jack. Just because I can't sleep doesn't mean you have to stay up."

"Are you showing me the door?"

"On the contrary," Elsa smirked, "I'm showing you the window." She pointed. "It's over there."

"Sure you don't want me to stay for hot cocoa?"

"You can't drink hot things."

"There's a second time for everything. I don't mind, honest." Jack wasn't going to admit he was bored at night. He didn't get tired; that was true enough. If Elsa wasn't going to be sleeping, there was loads of fun to be had with the one person who could actually see him. They could prank every member of the staff within an hour. Comedy gold. Okay, well, probably comedy bronze. Comedy gold would be pranking the King and Queen.

"Jack. Go."

Jack began to whistle, walking toward the chair by the door. He sat down in it, back against one of its arms, legs propped up against the other. He laced his fingers behind his head, getting comfortable. He would not be moved.

Elsa shrugged, feigning compliance. "Well, as long as you're staying, I suppose you can sing me a lullaby tonight."

Jack almost fell out of the chair. He sprang to the window, wind propelling him, snatching up his staff on the way. "'Night, Elsa!"

Elsa watched the window for a moment, waiting to make sure he'd gone. She allowed herself a giggle, then settled down to sleep. It would be a long night.

Who needed bedrooms? Bo-ring. Jack exited Elsa's chambers and skipped a whole flight of steps this time by leaping over the bannister. Where to go, where to go? That long hall looked promising.

He thoroughly enjoyed sliding his way into the next room. He slid so far on bare feet that he found himself crashing into a rather large seat, landing in a tangle of arms and legs across the chair itself. Standing, he examined it with a tingle of awe. It was incredibly detailed.

The chair was, of course, completely made of ice. It was slanted at some points; the arms were almost triangular and the seat of it was dipped slightly, instead of a hard wooden slab with a cushion. He couldn't even see the legs; it wasn't on a dais high above the ground. It seemed to be part of the floor. The head of the chair was shaped like a mountain—not the pointy kind you see in drawings, but round and crooked. Jack realized it was the exact shape of the North Mountain.

How long had this been Elsa's escape route? How could he not have known? Yeah, he'd known she had wanted to run away to the wilderness somewhere, far away from her responsibilities. But he hadn't known she'd had a specific location picked out, like she'd been planning a social.

"What…" Jack stepped back a little more, marveling.

The most magnificent part of the chair was the peacock tail of pure, translucent crystal fanning out behind its top. The ice was shaped to look like the peak of a particularly complicated snowflake. Separate lines and shimmering designs spiraled across each branch, and in certain places it was so clear Jack could have made funny faces at himself.

Looking around the grand room, he saw long, arched windows in a row on every wall, and three different chandeliers hanging from the roof. When he looked down, beneath his toes he saw a pattern in the ice leading from the chair to the door. A carpet made of snow that wouldn't melt or crunch or dent beneath anyone's strides.

With a jolt Jack realized he was standing in a throne room.

Did she still think of herself as Queen? Maybe not Queen of Arendelle. Queen of something, though, for sure. She wouldn't give herself the prettiest throne ever constructed if she didn't.

"I thought you didn't want to be Queen," he murmured.

This intricate hall told him a different story.

But when he looked at the throne again, Jack started to grin. Of course it was so detailed. She'd been planning this one for a while now.

"Slow down!"

"No, you speed up!"

Jack tore into the throne room of the King and Queen of Arendelle; relieved they were out in the courtyard for now. Couldn't have them seeing their graceful little 12-year-old bursting in so unceremoniously. Her shoes were off, her braid was—little by little—coming out, and her cheeks were rosy with the effort of beating Frost to the dais. Jack thought she'd never looked better.

Jack slung himself into the throne on the left, kicking back with his staff on the first step. "I win."

Elsa, gasping for breath, leaned on the arm of the other throne, glove coming off. She adjusted it with the speed of paranoia. "I've never run so fast in my whole life!"

"And you still lost," Jack surmised. "Good try, Princess."

Elsa started to laugh, then straightened up, eyes wide, tugging at the sleeve of his white top. "No! Get down from there!"

Jack glanced at the chair beneath him, then up at its head. "What? What's wrong?"

"That's Papa's."

"So?"

"So you can't just sit there." Elsa spoke through her teeth, as though someone else were watching, cutting her eyes from him to the wall.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Jack slipped from the seat, brushing his shawl off. He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "I thought that's what chairs were for."

"Chairs. Not thrones." Elsa ran a hand along the other throne's cushion, gaze downcast. "I wonder…if I'll ever have my own throne. One day."

"Let's hope it's more comfortable than this," Jack grunted, nudging the throne with the side of his foot. Frost spread up the wood. "It's pretty cramped."

"Mine will be," Elsa said proudly, folding her arms. "I'll get a new one."

"Yeah?"

She nodded matter-of-factly. "If I have my own throne, it'll be—" She gasped. "That's it! I've got an idea."

"Does it involve lunch?"

"No." Elsa took his hand and started to pull him toward the doors. She stopped. "Well, I guess it can."

"Oh good."

"Come on!"

They snuck to her father's study and retrieved some parchment and a quill. Then the two of them retreated to the throne room again, and Elsa closed the double doors, locking them in case Anna figured out she wasn't in her room anymore. Jack disapproved, but he was too curious about Elsa's idea to protest.

Elsa knelt primly before the dais and spread the parchment out in front of her, taking the quill in one hand. "Okay." When she tried to mark the paper, nothing showed up. Grunting in frustration, Elsa shook the quill a little.

"Forget something?" Jack held out the inkwell.

"Thank you." Elsa took it from him and began to draw.

Jack knelt beside her, looking over her shoulder the entire time. She kept glancing up at her parents' thrones for reference. Jack saw her wince when she got a drop of ink on the wrist of one of her gloves, but he assured her it wouldn't keep them from helping sustain her powers—however much he didn't want them to. Elsa drew and drew, and every time he thought she was finished, she'd tuck her bangs to one side and he knew she'd thought of something to add. When it was all done—snowflake design and all—Jack quickly snatched it up.

"Hey!"

Jack looked the picture over. "I didn't know you were an artist," he teased.

"I'm still learning," Elsa told him modestly. "I've gotta be able to draw maps and stuff when I'm a Queen."

"Looks pretty good." Jack held it high up out of her reach when she tried to take it back. "But it's missing something."

"What?" Elsa tapped her foot impatiently.

"You didn't sign it." Jack, with a grand bow, gave her the parchment.

"Oh. Right." Elsa quickly wrote her name in the bottom right corner.

Jack chortled. "No, no, not there. It's made of ice, right?"

Elsa looked at her feet. She seemed reluctant to admit she'd actually wanted to use her powers for something, especially something as shallow as her own throne. "Yes…"

"Then you're gonna be the one making it, right?"

"I guess."

"Right, so you gotta sign the chair. That's your work of art, isn't it?"

Smiling, Elsa put her signature in the tiniest of letters along one arm of the snowflake heading. Holding her picture up against the sunlight streaming in from the window, the princess turned that smile on him over one shoulder. "Thanks, Jack."

It was at that moment that something caught Jack's eye. He leaned closer, peering at the throne. There, carved right into that same branch, was Elsa's name, in flawless calligraphy. Jack grinned from ear to ear.

Leaving the throne room to go find his friend, Jack couldn't keep that grin back anymore. Everything he saw here, everywhere he visited, he was reminded of the days when all he'd needed was her. Maybe she hadn't forgotten the good times after all. Not completely.

And he certainly hadn't forgotten them either.