A.N. Back in 2016 a little thing called AnnaWeek was organised, with prompts for each day. The first prompt was Home.
Originally posted February 20th 2016 on Tumblr.
While growing up Anna spend many hours walking through the castle, mostly because she had nowhere else to go. Sure, the garden and the courtyard offered some space to stretch the legs, but even there you could not spend the whole day, especially when the weather did not want to cooperate, which actually happen quite often in Arendale´s small kingdom. So, when she had no lessons to attend and her parents were busy, Anna let her restless legs decide where to go. Through the years there seemed not a single spot to exist where the young princess had not been. She knew all tree floors by heart, the ground floor with the big noble dinning room and the grand ballroom, the kitchen and the storeroom, the servant's quarters in part of the east wing. She knew exactly how many steps it took from her room on the second floor to her parent's chambers down the hall, leading past her sisters closed door. She knew the way to the family's dinning room and her mother's drawing room, like she knew the way to her fathers study on the third floor and the meeting room where he always held long discussions. She knew every book in the library as she knew every painting in the gallery. For her the castle was the whole word.
Even while she exactly knew that the world was bigger and with many more places to live, a simple question crossed her mind first during her history lesson when she was about 10 years old. Where did all the other people live? Her history book told about the conditions under which people often had to struggle in order to be able to live somewhere, but it never described the people's homes. What did they look like? How many rooms did they have? How did it smell there? Suddenly her head was dizzying with questions. After that she spend many hours looking out the windows that allowed her a glance on the village in front of the castle. The houses looked neat to her, small but neat. Lined up in perfect rows around the town square and spreading like spiders web upon the hills, it was hard to believe that people lived there, families with children, old people, and young people. What did they do in the evening when they were finished with their work? Are their lives so much different then hers or is her different then theirs?
As she grew older and older, she often daydreamed how her life would look like if she lived somewhere else. The many books she read only filled her immigration more and more. Many lonely years she thought about that, with both parents gone and her sister so distant, the only refuge she had left was her dreamed different life in a house somewhere else. Not that she ever wanted to leave her sister, but so many things missing made life hard.
Until it changed. Suddenly many things changed, and as things changed, Anna again started to think about what she had when she had been younger. Now the though of a different life seemed so out of place to her, that she actually shuddered thinking about it. How could she ever have thought such a thing? It did not help either that both Elsa and Kristoff tried to convince her that such thought were normal.
"You don´t have to be ashamed of such thoughts. You are a adventures spirit, don´t you think I know my little sister?" Elsa once said with a smile.
And so, Anna started to rethink her thoughts, wishing to place them in a bit more positive way in her head.
One evening they all were sitting in the drawing room, the warm fire crackling in the mantel place, outside darkness and starlight. Everyone was somehow occupied with his own, in one corner was Olaf playing with figures of ice Elsa had made for him, Elsa was sitting in the armchair reading a book, Kristoff sat on the sofa talking about his life mountains and Anna was leaning on his arm listening. And then it hit her, the answer she was searching for.
"This is my home" she whispered more to herself than to anyone else, but it never less made Kristoff stop his talking and Elsa look up from her book. But Anna did not notice, for she was finally happy. Yes, she may have daydreamed of how her life would have been living somewhere else, but she now also understood that it she actually never wished it. Like she had felt safe and happy when her parents were around, she also felt it this very moment, with Elsa and Kristoff and Olaf. No matter where you live, family makes a place a home. And if the old telling My home is my castle is true, the it certainly did also count for her.
"This is my home"