The weeks slipped away quickly. Elsa's promise to Anna soon spread throughout the kingdom – though Anna would never say who let it slip. As it turned out, the people of Arendelle also were unimpressed by the rainy weather, especially the children. However, upon hearing that the Queen would publically display her incredible magic on Christmas Eve if there was no real snow by then, the villagers began praying for more of the warm weather. After all, magic snow would obviously make the season the most magical.
Soon enough, the day finally arrived. Anna actually woke up early for perhaps the first time ever. She leapt out of bed and immediately threw open her curtains. The dark land was still void of snow, but that was fine: she had a Plan B.
Seeing as the holidays allowed her to go through a few days without worrying about paperwork, Elsa was sleeping in for perhaps the first time ever. Everything was perfect: her bed was warm, her blankets soft, her room quiet, and her sleep peaceful. She was so deep in her sleep that she did not hear the approaching footsteps of someone who was clumsy, barefoot and running as fast as they could until the door to her room had practically been kicked open. She was semi-conscious when the steps abruptly ended, and wide-awake when something Anna-sized and bony came crashing down on top of her.
"Elsa!" Anna exclaimed as she bounced up and down on the bed before settling on sharply shaking her sister's shoulder, "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
"Oh god, I think you broke something," Elsa groaned into her pillow, trying to ignore the pain from where Anna's knee had collided with her back.
"It's Christmas Eve! You know what that means?" Anna asked excitedly, as she reached for one of Elsa's eyes and pried the lid open.
"I should be sleeping in?" Elsa responded dryly.
"No time for that! Get up!" And with that, Anna sprung off the bed and grabbed the blankets. She had hoped to just remove the covers, but it would seem that at some point in the night, Elsa had wrapped her blankets around herself tightly, meaning that with a good, sharp tug, the Queen was sent to the floor to land in a pile of linen. Anna had to admit, turning the tables felt good.
Elsa fought through the mess in annoyance before finally freeing her head. "Was that really necessary?" she shot grumpily.
"To be fair, I wasn't expecting that to happen," Anna admitted honestly, "But it was funny. Nice bedhead, by the way."
Elsa rolled her eyes before getting up with as much dignity as she could muster. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, and grimaced slightly at what Anna had been referring to: the ice she used to keep her hair in check had melted overnight, meaning that all the short bits that did not fit into her braid were flying every which way and falling messily into her eyes. The braid itself did not fair that well, either.
She yawned before wandering over to her wardrobe to pick out her outfit for the day. "Would you mind telling me why you're up this early? And why is it so important for me to be up right this second?" she wondered.
Anna merely waltzed over to the window and drew the blinds. "What do you see, my dear sister?" she questioned slyly.
"Arendelle," Elsa replied sleepily before cluing in, "Lacking snow."
"Exactly," Anna stated, "Sooo… Do you wanna build a snowman?"
Elsa looked outside again before turning back to her sister, the playful, impish grin Anna loved present on her face. "I would love to, Anna."
In no less than an hour, both royals were fully dressed and bounding down the main staircase toward the front door. Anna was in the lead, practically dragging her sister along and giggling her head off the whole time. Elsa was not exactly the image of calm, either, but there was an attempt on her part to tone her sister down a little bit. Anna was too caught up in her excitement to notice.
They threw open the doors to the courtyard, only to be met with as many eager citizens that the square could hold. Elsa shot a confused glance at Anna, who merely smiled sheepishly and said, "I may have told a few people that you were gonna make it snow on Christmas Eve…"
"A few?" Elsa whispered back, "The entire city is here."
"That's ok. You've done public displays before," Anna told her confidently. Noticing that Elsa's shoulders had tensed up and she was fiddling with her hands, Anna added gently, "You'll be fine, Elsa."
Elsa turned to stare into her sister's earnest eyes. She slowly allowed a small smile to form on her lips, before heading to the center of the courtyard. The crowd parted for her as she walked forward. Anna followed along eagerly, but remained behind just a little once Elsa stopped to give her sister some space.
Elsa took a deep breath before glancing around at the crowd again. Whole families were present, along with shopkeepers, dockworkers, guards and even a few rough-looking men who probably had less-than-ethical employment. But every single person was watching her with eager grins, some even bouncing up and down in excitement. The children present could barely contain themselves as they waited to see magical snow float down from the sky. Elsa felt the rush of happiness and adrenaline she had felt back in July when she thawed her unintentional winter, and had then given a public display of her powers to show people that she did in fact have control over them. Her doubts were washed away, and she found herself asking the crowd energetically, "Are you ready?"
The crowd responded with cheers and applause. Children laughed and nodded their heads up and down. The gang of ruffians hoisted their swords high in the air and roared in approval. She even spotted some of her councilmembers – the older, stiffer ones who never had anything nice to say – allowing smiles to form their expressions.
"Alright," she laughed as she began to roll her hands over each other, forming a glowing blue ball of magic between them, "Let's make this a white Christmas!" With that, she released to orb high into the sky. Once it reached the cloud layer, it exploded like a firework in the sky. Shimmering blue particles flew out in every direction, but instead of falling down, they went up into the clouds. The overcast sky shifted from a miserable rainy grey to snowy silver, and within seconds, snowflakes began to float downwards. The temperature dropped just enough to keep to snow around, but not enough to be bitter. As an added bonus, Elsa stomped her foot into the ground to turn the center of the courtyard into an ice rink once more, before freezing the fountains into spiralling sculptures of ice.
Everyone cheered again, before laughter and happy conversations filled the air. People began skating around on the perfect sheet of ice, while others wandered around to view the artistic ice spreading around the castle. One of the ruffians swapped out his sword for a guitar missing a string and began to play, prompting his cohorts and a few palace guards to begin singing Christmas carols together. Children raced toward the snow, which as very quickly accumulating on the ground, to begin making ammunition for a snowball fight.
Anna shakily made her way over to her sister, since she still was not that great at moving around on ice. "Told ya you'd be fine," she stated with a grin, "And just in case I haven't said it enough yet, thank you!" She enveloped the Queen in a hug, only to nearly bring them both to the ground when her feet slipped out from under her. Fortunately, Elsa had enough balance for the both of them.
Anna released her sister and looked around. "The snow's piling up," she observed.
"Yes. I gave the clouds enough for about a foot of it, and then the sky should clear up. I don't want to bury the kingdom, after all," Elsa said as they moved off the rink, "Now, is there anything special you wanted to do today? We basically have the whole day to ourselves."
Anna thought hard for a minute, before gasping gleefully. "I know! Come on!" she cried, grabbing hold of Elsa's hand and proceeding to drag her toward the main gate, "And you'd better warm up those powers of yours, cuz you'll be using them a lot today!"
"Wait, what?" Elsa replied, "What are you– Whoa!" Anna had already started to run while still maintaining an iron grip on Elsa's hand, which meant that the Queen now had to be running, too.
Anna guided her through the crowds of people, narrowly missing several people and about a dozen light posts. Finally Elsa got a sense of where they were going when Anna slowed to a stop in front of the giant Christmas tree in the middle of the square. Lanterns were hanging off the bows to be lit up at night, but it was void of most other decorations. The Princess merely gestured to the tree, and said, "Go nuts."
"Anna, I'm not sure–"
"I met the mayor in town the other day. He was saying how he wished there could be more decorations on this tree, but with it being outside, there's not much else they can put on it. And because it's been so wet and windy lately, the lanterns don't fair too well," Anna explained, "Oh if only we knew someone who not only knew how to make winter-proof ornaments, but also could, I dunno, make magical ice that happens to glow in the dark if she wants it to."
Elsa looked at the tree, Anna, then back to the tree.
"Come on, Elsa, I'm talking about you," Anna deadpanned.
"I know, but I… This is different from what I do to the castle."
"Elsa," Anna sighed as she took her sister's hands in hers, "People love what you do, no matter what."
"But what if–"
Anna suddenly released her and turned to the people gathering in the square. "Who wants Queen Elsa to decorate this tree properly?" she shouted happily.
The people responded with just as much joy. Words of encouragement and pleading for a show filled the snowy air as more and more people gathered around them. One man mentioned something about decorating the whole town, and upon hearing that several children began cheering loudly for that to happen.
Anna then looked back at her sister. "You see? They want you to," she stated. Then, in a soft voice only Elsa could hear, she added, "Do the magic."
One festive whirlwind of a day later, the Queen and Princess found themselves curled up under a thick blanket on the highest balcony of the castle, watching the aurora through breaks in the clouds. Arendelle glowed warmly below them, the orange lights from the lanterns and torches sparking off the white snow on the ground. They could see the tree in the town square, a beacon of icy blue amongst the firelight. Much of the ice adorning window frames, eaves and gables of the town houses shone with a similar glow.
After Elsa had decorated the tree, she had moved on to the houses and shops. Her unique style of rose mailing made the whole town look like something out of a fairy tale. It was very geometric, yet free and elegant. The lines were straight, and the angles precise, but it was not rigid. It was different from tradition, yet it followed tradition's forms. It was Elsa, and the people loved it.
After that, Anna had them build about twenty different snowmen with the town children, before starting a seemingly kingdom-wide snowball fight. When everyone had finally grown exhausted from that, the royals wandered around town, wishing people happy holidays and chatting about family and plans for celebrations. Later that day, it became apparent that the courtyard rink was not big enough, so Elsa pre-maturely froze a section of the fjord to expand the skating area, being sure to create a decorative ice fence along the edge of the ice to keep people from falling into the frigid water. And it was there that they stayed until dinnertime. Anna had been shivering like an excited small dog, her nose running and her fingers numb, but she was ecstatically happy regardless. Not only had she spent the whole day doing fun things with her sister, but those fun things involved snow that would stick around for Christmas. She could not wait to do it all again the following day.
After dinner, Elsa had been planning on reading in the library, but Anna had noticed that the clouds had cleared a little and the Northern Lights were on full display behind the misty veil. And so, here they were on the balcony on the castle's main tower. Elsa insisted that Anna take a blanket to wrap around herself, and Anna insisted that she only would if Elsa would cuddle underneath it with her.
"Thank you, again," Anna sighed as she rested her head on her sister's shoulder, "This day was amazing."
"You're welcome, Anna," Elsa chuckled, "I am well aware of that."
Anna stared up at the sky. "The sky is really awake tonight," she observed.
Elsa laughed softly. "You still use that expression?" she asked softly.
"Well, yeah. The auroras are magic in the sky. Therefore, it is awake," Anna stated matter-of-factly, "You don't?"
"Not since I learned that the aurora's are really just energy from the sun interacting with the atmosphere," Elsa replied.
Anna was silent for a moment. "I like my explanation better," she said.
Elsa smiled and playfully rolled her eyes. "Well, one of us had to be a realist," she sighed.
Anna yawned. "Funny that it's you," she murmured as she snuggled closer to her sister and closed her eyes, "The one with magic powers is the realistic one in this family. Who would've thought?"
Elsa laughed softly at Anna's sleepy joke. She adjusted the blanket so it better covered the Princess before letting out a long, relaxed breath. She closed her eyes for a minute to simply enjoy the moment: the sounds of the cool breeze blowing softly through the town, the waves crashing on the breakwater, the distant howl of a wolf, and the sound of bells attached to a horse-drawn sled trotting through the streets; and the warmth of her sister nestled against her comfortably.
Then she felt something on her cheek. She opened her eyes to see a small snowflake float down to land on her foot. She looked up to see more following behind, all coming from a naturally formed cloud.
Anna also felt them, and was roused from her nap. She sleepily looked up at her sister, and muttered, "You could have shaken me awake. Why the snowflakes?"
Elsa grinned. "It's not me this time," she said simply.
Anna stared at her with confusion before a fat flake landed right on her nose. She looked down at it and observed it melt away before it suddenly clicked: it was really snowing. "Elsa!" she gasped, "It's snowing! It's really snowing! Not that your snow isn't real, but this is real real snow, and oh my gosh! It's snowing!"
Anna leapt to her feet and leaned over the railing of the balcony, craning her neck as if to see if the rest of the kingdom was also getting snow. Elsa rose from the ground and followed after her so she could wrap the blanket Anna had left behind around the Princess before she froze. Suddenly, the clock in the square chimed midnight. "Look at that," Elsa said lightly, "I told you it would snow before Christmas day."
Anna laughed. "Yeah, two whole minutes before Christmas day," she scoffed playfully. She took Elsa's hand in hers, and gave it a small squeeze. "I did enjoy the magic snow more, though," she admitted softly.
"Consider it an early gift, then," Elsa replied warmly as she pulled her sister in for a hug, "Merry Christmas, Anna."
"Merry Christmas to you, too, Elsa," Anna whispered, "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"And…thank you."
"You said that already…and you're welcome."