Same prompt as the previous chapter, but with a sad bent.
"Anna, it's time for—what are you wearing?"
Anna peers at her father underneath the heavy makeshift glasses she'd made for herself. "I'm Elsa," she says, pertly. "And I'm wearing glasses because I read a lot in my room, alone."
It's an old game, she's been playing it for seven years. I'm Elsa, I do this! She won't forget; at night as Gerda unties her lace ribbons she whispers a prayerElsa my sister Elsa she has blue eyes and pretty hair she's fifteen years old now her birthday is in July Elsa my sister Elsa Elsa Elsa.
The things she knows, she'll carve into the castle walls, and if Elsa changes, Anna will change with her.
"Elsa doesn't—" her father stops, and breathes slowly through his nose. "You don't think you're getting too old for this game?"
"Play it with me," Anna says, taking her glasses off—so Elsa doesn't wear glasses, it's one more thing she knows. "I'm going to be Princess Elsa—"
"—Anna, I don't—"
"—and you're going to be the prince who rescues me from the trolls, who've trapped her in a scary castle and left her to rot!"
Papa stares at her. "Anna," he says, quietly.
There are words hidden under her name; she knows—she's old enough—but she doesn't care. She doesn't care. "Rescue me," Anna insists. "Take me out of the castle!"
Papa just looks at her, and she thinks that he might shatter.
Anna thinks of frozen things, and in a flash remembers you'reokayAnnaIgotyou
Then the memory is gone. Her father stands up. "You're too old for this game," he says again, voice shaking.
He walks away.
Anna stares out of the window at the cloudless sky and wishes for rain.