Fleshmen and snowmen alike watched in awed silence as the church filled with snow. Mary, Anna, and the Archbishop huddled closer, Anna clutching the limp Elsa in her arms. Through the indoor blizzard, they could barely make out the short, chubby shape of the High Priest. He was standing in the center of the chapel, between the pews, the glowing amulet around his neck and a greasy smile on his face. The storm winds were making a perfect circle around him, leaving the priest not so much as shivering.

And, most pressingly, a small flurry of snowflakes by the priest's side were hovering in place, shaping themselves into the unmistakable outline of a certain queen – there were even bunches of snowflakes to represent the flowing cape and the French braid.

"Holy moly." Anna clutched the real Elsa tighter. "Maybe she really is a goddess?"

"You just made Elsa's shape in snow!" Mary yelled over the howling blizzard. "That doesn't prove anything!"

"It'll be good enough for the Paganians!" the High Priest yelled back. "You'd be surprised how many of their gods have 'ascended to a higher plane of existence.' They've been buying it for generations."

"Lies." The Archbishop's voice was all but drowned out by the windstorm. "Everything my people have ever believed is lies."

"Hey, could you maybe save the crisis of faith for after we get the amulet from him?" With not a small amount of reluctance, Anna shoved the comatose Elsa into the bishop's arms. "You worship Elsa, right? Can I trust you to hold her for a second?"

"What? Why?" asked a dazed Archbishop.

Anna took a glance towards the High Priest across the room, then leaned in and whispered, "You and me are the only non-magic people here, and you're an old dude, so it's up to me to snag that amulet thingy."

"What's your plan to avoid freezing to death when you get near him?" asked the bishop.

"I'm more of a 'make it up as you go along' kinda person."

"Wonderful."

That was about all the prior thought Anna gave it before diving headfirst into the blizzard. Unfortunately, the winds slowed Anna down to a crawl, so she barely made it two feet across the carpet before the High Priest spotted her.

"Ooh, looks like someone's eager to get smited." He clutched the amulet in his fist and pointed it towards her. "Snow Goddess, bury her!" The Elsa-shaped snowflakes obediently raised their arm, causing the entire blizzard to shoot towards one princess-sized target. Anna yelped and tried to dive out of the way, but the ice impacted in a heartbeat.

By all right, Anna should've turned into an ice-statue again, but instead, she opened her eyes to find a large, slender creature shielding her.

"Are you alright?" asked the unnaturally deep voice of Mary's attack form.

"I owe you one," said Anna breathlessly.

Mary turned her featureless face towards the High Priest. "So it's not enough to put Elsa in a coma – You want to be a murderer, too?"

"Well, like my pops always said, what's the point of having all-powerful magic if you can't break the rules of civilized society with it?" The High Priest let out a laugh that didn't sound particularly sane. "Hmm, you snowmen do seem to be immune to freezing to death, though. I wonder..." He turned to the army of snowmen and extended his amulet. Most of the snowmen had backed away to what they'd judged a safe distance from the amulet.

Suddenly, the amulet flashed, and every last snowmen in the mob morphed into attack forms of their own – Marshmallow and his lookalikes drew their spikes, and the snowbirds grew to monstrous size.

"Alright!" cheered the priest. "Looks like now that I've got the Snow Goddess's power, I can control her snowmen. That's gonna come in handy when I lead the march on Clovisia." He waved his pendant high in the air. "Snowmen! I command you to become my soldiers and kill all who oppose me!"

The amulet flashed blinding white.

"Elsa's got to be around here somewhere!" Kristoff ran through the rain-soaked courtyard, followed by Sven, Olaf, and a handful of Olaf's brothers. "Man, I don't get it." Kristoff halted the procession to catch his breath. "First Elsa's snowmen attack, then they go back to normal, and now we can't find her or Anna anywhere. Something weird's going on, I know it."

"Maybe Elsa's magic is fine?" said Olaf, who for the time being was keeping his extra carrot and twigs intact. "Maybe her snowmen just got in a really bad mood all at the same time?"

"Bad mood?" scoffed Kristoff. "You were cackling like an evil mastermind."

"Yeah, well, everyone has an off day. I'm totally back to normal now." Suddenly, Olaf clutched his head with three of his arms. "Whoa. That's weird."

"Look, we don't have time to sit around!" Kristoff stood up straight and prepared to resume running. "I've got a bad feeling if we don't find the girls soon, somebody's gonna get hur-" Shtk. "AGH!"

Kristoff fell to the cobblestone, cursing and clutching the sharpened twig sticking out his thigh.

As his brothers drew their icicle-spikes, a diabolical grin spread across Olaf's face. "Oh, look at that... You've been impaled."

Mary dug her icicle-arms into snowman after snowman, but there were simply too many. She'd have trouble holding off one of her siblings, let alone dozens.

"Mary, look out!" At Anna's warning, Mary barely managed to duck one of the Mini-Marshmallow's fists before it could shatter her head into a million pieces.

"Hmm, guess that Sussebassen guy was right," said the High Priest, looking over Mary thoughtfully. "You are too smart to be brainwashed. Ah, well, what's one less snowman soldier?"

At this point, Anna and Mary had been backed into a corner. Mary's eyeless face looked from Anna to the High Priest, who was standing at the edge of the pews. In the softest tone her magical, mouthless voice could produce, Mary murmured, "Get ready, Anna. We only have one chance."

Then Mary morphed the bottom of her face into an open jaw. Out burst a torrent of freezing wind. Snowmen were sent tumbling backwards by the largest bout of blizzard-breath Mary had ever made in her life (a skill she'd inherited from her brother Marshmallow). The "Snow Goddess" exploded into snowflakes and reformed a few feet to the right. The High Priest, meanwhile, simply smirked as he watched his amulet soak up any freezing wind that neared him.

"I can do this all day, snowman!" he taunted. "Sooner or later, your brothers will overpower you, and then they'll hold you down while my lucky charm here converts you into magical energy. You snowmen aren't gods. You're nothing but tiny little pieces of the Snow Goddess's magic, about as significant as a grain of sand on a beach. Your death will mean nothing! You hear me? Noth- Eeaaack!"

"Eeaaack" is the sound the High Priest made when a foot had a sudden and unexpected high speed collision with his crotch. The priest tumbled onto the carpet, screaming and clutching his wounded pride.

"Take that, you son of a-!"

While Mary had kept him distracted, Anna had snuck up behind the priest through the pews. She gave him another several kicks to the same spot, then yanked the amulet from his neck, snapping the string around it. The blizzard immediately stopped, and the snowflake-Snow Goddess and every single brainwashed snowmen turned to Anna and bowed in unison.

"Whoa, I did it," said a disarmed Anna. It took another second for it to really sink in. "I got the amulet." A smile crept across her face. "I got the amulet! I've got the power now! Yes! Yes! Ha ha ha! That makes me the Snow Goddess!" Anna pointed the amulet to an empty pew, which promptly froze over. "This is the best! I've always wanted ice powers! Look out, world! Here comes Anna the Snow Goddess! Here comes-" Suddenly, her eyes snapped towards the High Priest. They narrowed. "You."

"Oh poop," said the priest. His voice sounded much higher than usual.

Anna turned to the Elsa-shaped snowflakes. "Hey, snowflake-Elsa?" She pointed to the priest. "Sic him."

Slowly, the mass of snowflakes spun towards the High Priest and raised an arm.

"Oh, but don't kill him!" Anna quickly added. "Just, y'know, rough him up a little."

There was a massive explosion of frost. When the dust settled, the High Priest was encased from the neck down in ice.

"Great, great." Next, Anna looked to the far side of the room at the Archbishop, who was still cradling Elsa in his arms. "Now, uh, I don't suppose you can put all the magic back where it came from?"

The amulet glowed one last time, and then the "Snow Goddess" and all the amulet's icy magic flooded back into Elsa's body. Almost instantly, every drop of stray ice and snow in the church vanished, and the room returned to a temperature that wouldn't freeze water. By the time Anna ran to Elsa's side, Elsa's hair was already its true color and her skin was properly pale.

"Oh, thank goodness." The Archbishop breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Her body heat was starting to melt her dress."

"Nngh... What happened?" Elsa's eyes weren't open for two seconds before she was trapped in simultaneous hugs from both Anna and Mary.

"You did a heroic sacrifice for Mary and then that priest guy had your powers but I kicked him in the nuts and took his amulet so then I had your powers for a minute and it was really awesome but then I gave them back so you're not in a coma anymore!" said Anna in the span of three seconds.

"What?" Elsa immediately wrenched herself from the Archbishop's arms and sprang to her feet. "Oh God, how could I be so stupid? I let the priest take my powers! I put everyonein danger!"

"Hey, hey, it's alright," Anna said soothingly, placing a hand on Elsa's shoulder. "No one got hurt." Behind her, the High Priest made a low whimpering noise.

"I'm sorry. I just heard Mary's begging, and..." Elsa's eyes drifted towards her snowwoman. "...I threw reason to the wind."

"Elsa." Even in her attack form, there was something about Mary's posture that made her seem like she was on the brink of tears. "You sacrificed yourself for me?"

"I learned from the best." Elsa traded smiles with Anna. "Mary?" With a flick of her arm, Elsa transformed Mary back into her regular, feminine form, even recreating her dress, glasses, and heels. "What I said to you before... I was wrong. I'm not sorry you exist. I'll never apologize for making you again. I don't care what happened with Sussebassen – Creating life is the greatest thing my powers have ever done. It brought me you, Olaf, Marshmallow... I-" She faltered. "I have a real family again."

There was a long break in the conversation to make time for ample hugging.

"Elsa, I... I'm sorry..." Mary's icy eyes were beginning to water. "For siding with Sussebassen... For... For everything."

"It's forgiven, Mary... It's all forgiven."

After a while, the chapel doors swung open and a handful of guards stormed into the room. "Your Majesty! There you are!" The guards hesitated when they noticed the dozens of snowmen lounging around the pews.

"They're not attacking anymore," Elsa assured them. "Was anyone hurt?"

"No, ma'am," said a guard. "There was only some minor property damage."

"And mass panic," added another. "But your snowmen's rampage was confined to the courtyard. Hardly anyone saw them besides palace staff."

Elsa sighed. "That's lucky – I really don't need another black mark on my record. I'll arrange a staff meeting and explain what happened."

"Elsa! Anna!" It was at this point that a certain unmanly blonde burst into the room, followed by his trusty reindeer. "Thank God!"

"Kristoff, you're bleeding!" Anna immediately ran to his side while Elsa sealed up his leg wound with ice.

"What happened?" asked Elsa. "Did my snowmen hurt you?"

"Olaf is bipolar, that's what happened!"

"Hey, guys!" Just then, Olaf bounced into the room, followed by a handful of his siblings. "Who wants a warm hug?"

"Agh! Keep him away! Keep him away!" Kristoff promptly hid behind Sven.

Elsa did a double take. "Err, Olaf... why do you have two noses and six arms?"

"It's been that kinda day," shrugged Olaf.

"He's back to normal, scaredy-cat." Anna smirked and ruffled Kristoff's hair.

"Why'd Elsa's snowmen attack in the first place?"

"Well, when Elsa opened up Sussebassen's mind so she could change it and make him nice, she forgot to close it back, so when she had a nightmare, it made him turn crazy and evil, and then Sussebassen brainwashed all the other snowmen."

Kristoff stared at her. "No, really, why'd they attack?"

"See, this is exactly why I don't want to experiment with my snowmen's minds," said Elsa. "My powers are completely unpredictable. We're lucky no one was hurt this time." She turned to the assorted snowmen, who'd returned to their more docile, less spiky forms. "You guys had better go back to the North Mountain. I'll visit as soon as everything's been straightened out here, I promise."

Elsa said her goodbyes to Marshmallow and the others, and then they obediently trudged out the door so the snowbirds could fly them off.

"My lady," spoke up the Archbishop, "with all due respect, have you forgotten about the amulet?"

"Oh yeah." Anna walked over to the High Priest, who was still cased in ice, and said, "Hey, random question, will this thing's magic still work if we destroy it?"

"Why should I tell you?" huffed the priest.

"Suit yourself." Anna handed the amulet to Kristoff. "Could you break this for me?"

"Sure." Kristoff nonchalantly snapped the amulet over his knee.

"Agh! What have you done, you stupid-? I mean, uh..." The High Priest cleared his throat, then said stiffly, "That did nothing. The amulet is as powerful as ever. Honest."

"You know, for a powerful magic artifact, that thing was surprisingly brittle," said Kristoff.

The High Priest muttered something about how it's a little hard to put a durability charm on a talisman that's sole purpose is to absorb all magic it touches.

"Here." Elsa scooped up the amulet's pieces and handed them to a guard. "Break these into the tiniest pieces you can, then go out into the woods and bury them in random places. That should keep any lingering magic they might have out of people's hands." She turned to another guard. "And I need you to arrest this man." Elsa waved a hand and freed the High Priest from the ice. "Charge him with the use of magic with intent to harm and rebellion against the monarchy." The guards obediently restrained the priest, who was a little too chubby and middle-aged to resist.

"Who is that guy, anyways?" asked Kristoff.

"Oh, some wackjob with a magic amulet who tried to steal Elsa's powers," said Anna. "I don't think he had anything to do with Sussebassen, though. He just thought the snowman rebellion was a good time to play his hand."

As the guards dragged him away, the High Priest glared at Anna, Kristoff, Mary, Olaf, and Sven, and muttered, "And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dumb reindeer."

"Well, hopefully that's the last we see of-" Anna paused. "Last we see of... uh... What was that guy's name again?"

"Beats me," said Elsa.

"Come to think of it, I've been working with him for years and I never asked," said the Archbishop. "Frankly, I never liked the man."

"Eh, he's probably one of those people who don't have names," shrugged Anna. "You know, like the Duke of Weaseltown."

"By the way," spoke up Mary, "has anyone seen Fritz? Where's he been all this time?"

Elsewhere, in a marketplace on the opposite side of Arendelle's capital, far away from any rampaging snowmen and evil priests, a scrawny person slinked into the local toy store. It wasn't too cold out for September, and yet he wore a thick, heavy overcoat that covered his entire face.

"Excuse me," he muttered to the man behind the counter. "Do you have the Limited Edition Sparkle Snow Goddess Doll? It's for my little sister."

The palace staff was a bit jumpy at the moment, but nevertheless Elsa managed to gather every last guard, maid, and servant into the throne room. Elsa herself was seated on her ice-encrusted throne, while Anna, Kristoff, Fritz, Olaf, and Mary stood at her side. Anna and Kristoff now sported matching bandages from snowman-related injuries, and Olaf was back to only one nose and two arms.

"...only a small hiccup with my powers," Elsa was saying. "I apologize for the panic my snowmen caused, and I'll do anything I can to make it up to you. Really, when you think about it, this is a good thing. No one was hurt, and the more experiences I have with my magic, the more I'll know how to avoid these problems in the future." Elsa gave the crowd a strained smile. "But, of course, hopefully there won't be any problems in the future. I don't plan on losing control of my powers ever again." (In actuality, Elsa would be holding a distressingly similar staff meeting following Anna's birthday next June.)

Mary frowned as she overlooked the palace staff. They seemed to be having mixed reactions. Some, like Kai and Gerda, looked perfectly happy and forgiving, while others – the elderly council members in particular – weren't bothering to conceal their scowls. Mary couldn't even bring herself to look Anders's way.

"...spare no expense repairing the courtyard. That's all I have to say. Please go about your business."

And with that, the palace staff flooded out the room. Mary found herself counting the number of people who gawked at her or walked a bit faster when Mary got near, but she gave up around thirty or so. Mary found her eyes drifting towards her feet... which might be why she collided with Fritz.

"Oof!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Mary impulsively grabbed Fritz's arm to stop him from face-planting. The two of them held that pose for a solid minute, staring at each other.

"I, um, need to go do a... thing," mumbled Fritz, tugging his arm free.

"Right, right," said Mary. "Bye."

"Bye."

Fritz spent another minute standing there in silence.

"Fritz, listen!" Mary blurted out. "About what happened-"

"Super important thing to do! Bye!" The next second, Fritz was out the door.

Mary hung her head as returned to Elsa's throne. "They hate me."

"That's not true, Mary..." Elsa sat up to stroke her snowy hair. "People are only scared of you. Once they see that my snowmen are harmless-"

"I did this to myself," said Mary, her head drooping even lower. "I was so taken with the promises Sussebassen made..." She looked down at herself. Mary was back to wearing her ice-clothes. Discarding them had been Sussebassen's idea. To distance themselves from their oppressors, he'd said.

Elsa gave Mary a concerned look. "Are you alright, Mary?"

For not the first time, Mary tried to tell Elsa about the crippled man, but the words refused to come. "I'm fine."

Judging from her face, Elsa didn't buy it in the slightest. "We're going to have a long talk, I promise," she said sternly, "but first I need to deal with my responsibilities as queen. I'll try and make my council meeting short."

"Can I come with you?" asked Mary.

"Again?" frowned Elsa. Mary nodded. "Wow, I don't think anyone else has ever taken such an interest in my politics."

"I just want to help you," said Mary. "I want to be..." She faltered. "...useful."

Elsa smiled, but it failed to reach her eyes. "I see. Well, I'll be glad to have you around."

Mary was about to follow Elsa out the door, but then she felt a tug at her dress. Mary looked down to see Olaf bobbing by her knees.

"Mary!" he said brightly. "The rain's stopped. Know what that means?"

Mary found herself smiling. "Mud?"

"Yeah! Come on!" Olaf bolted out the door before Mary could say another word.

She looked to Elsa.

"I have plenty of council meetings," Elsa said. "You can come to the next one."

Scarcely five minutes later, Mary and Olaf were in the middle of the garden, painted totally brown and sitting before the most amazing mudman ever constructed by snowmen.

"...Elsa totally could bring it to life," Olaf was saying. "I mean, I'm alive, and I'm not all snow." He wiggled his twig-arms to illustrate his point.

"But you still have snow," said Mary. "This thing's all mud."

"So? Just put an ice cube in it."

"By that logic, Elsa could bring anything to life." Honestly, Mary hadn't expected herself to be smiling and laughing on the same day Sussebassen had come into her room, yet it was hard not to when Olaf was around. "There's probably a certain quota of snow-and-ice her snowmen have to meet..."

"Hey, Mary?" Suddenly, Olaf looked introspective – or about as introspective as he was capable of looking, anyways. "I'm glad you're happy again."

Mary glanced away. She wished Olaf was right. "Olaf? I'm sorry for yelling at you."

Olaf's face stayed blank. "When was that?"

"You don't remember? I was in my room, and you came in, and I called you an idiot and slammed the door on you."

"Oh yeah." Olaf shrugged, or rather, bobbed his twigs-arms up and down. "You were just cranky. It's okay."

"No it's not." Mary took his twig in her hand. "I shouldn't have said it to you. I was wrong. You may not be the smartest snowman, but you're my brother. I love you."

"And you're my sister. I love you, too." Without an instant of hesitation, Olaf gave Mary a warm hug – smearing her with even more mud.

"Hey, Olaf?" Mary's eyes fell on a nearby rain puddle. Her pupils locked with her reflection's. "Do... Do you think phantoms are ever satisfied with their existence?"

"Hmm..." Olaf pondered this for a moment. "Well, that's why we need to find them. So we can make them happy."

"Make them happy?" repeated Mary. "You say that like it's easy."

"What are you talking about? It is easy. I mean, check out the size of this puddle!" Without another word, Olaf pounced in, splashing mud all over his sister.

The rest of the evening was spent less on philosophy, more on mudball-fighting.