The nurse paused and turned her head at the whisper which slipped from the dormitory she had just walked past. Walking back to it and grabbing the doorknob, she pushed the door open and cast the light of her candle over the rows of beds. A twitch here, a snore there, but nothing more.
"Hmmm." She held the light over a mop of tangled red hair for several seconds. When its owner did not move, she nodded to herself and shut the door. The room sighed with relief as her footsteps faded away.
The owner of the red hair slowly sat up in her bed and grinned. Tucking the lone streak of white behind her ear, she reached underneath her pillow and pulled out a small bundle of matches. The other women pulled their sheets a little closer as she leapt out of bed, crept to the center of the room and knelt down. The nails in three of the bent floorboards had been torn up long ago, and she carefully lifted them out of place before sticking her head through the resulting hole.
Below her lay another dormitory, one where the little faces of the beds' occupants eagerly stared up at her. "Hello, Anna!" they whispered.
"Evening, ladies." Sliding herself through the hole, Anna dropped into the younger girls' room and landed silently on her feet. The years of practice had served her well. "How's Gertrude tonight?"
"Doing worse," one of the children answered, her face falling. She pointed to a bed in the corner, where a girl of about six with curly dark hair lay coughing and whimpering.
Anna held up the bundle of matches. "Well, we'll just have to fix that." She sat on the bed next to the girl and gently stroked her hair. "Gertrude? Are you awake?"
Gertrude slowly opened her watery eyes. "Anna…?"
"I have a present for you." Taking out one of the matches, Anna struck it against the wall.
Gertrude's pale face lit up at the sight of the fire. "You brought them!" Sitting up, she took the match and stared at the flame, entranced. "How did you manage it?"
"Sharp eyes and quick fingers. And luck doesn't hurt," Anna answered, tapping the side of her nose. "Now I've only time for one story," she continued, addressing the whole room. "What shall it be?"
They crowded around her, climbing into her lap and kneeling at her feet. "The Snow Queen! Tell us about the Snow Queen, Anna."
"What, again?" she asked in mock exasperation.
They only nodded. "It's the one you tell best."
"Very well. Gather 'round, quiet. Now...do you know what snowflakes are very much like?" They all knew the answer, but this was how the story always began. "...Bees! They're always flitting about when they're in the air, and they can sting you until you're miserable if there's enough of them. There's one more thing, too. The bees have a queen, yes? Then logically, the snow has one as well."
The girl in Anna's lap tugged at one of her braids. "Is she like a bee, too?"
"She is, and yet she isn't. The Snow Queen is the most beautiful lady in the world. Her skin is made of the purest ice, and her hair is white. She wears a long, blue fancy dress and lives in a palace far up in the mountains, where no one can find her. She can conjure up ice and snow whenever she wants, and when winter comes, she flies around the world and shares her gift with everyone. She can never remain quietly on the earth, but goes up again into the black clouds. Many a winter's night she flies through the streets of the town, and peeps in at the windows. Then they freeze in so wondrous a manner that they look like flowers!"
"How do you know all this, Anna?" one of the girls asked. It was not a line in the game they played, but a real question.
"Because Anna has seen the Snow Queen!" another answered proudly. "Haven't you, Anna?"
Anna paused, and her hand went up to touch the streak in her hair. "Well...a few times, when it's all quiet and dark. She sees me sneaking around, comes right at me and…" And then I wake up. "...then she flies away."
"I've seen her!"
"No, you haven't!"
"Yes, I have!"
As the girls fell to squabbling, Anna gave Gertrude another pat and slipped away. Climbing atop a stool, she hoisted herself back into her own room and replaced the boards. She was asleep as soon as she crawled back in bed, and before long, she was dreaming of the girl dressed in ice.
Far above the dormitories, in the shadowy attic, a woman tossed and turned and dreamed of what she had lost.
The next morning, there was not a cloud in the sky. The sun beat down warmer than it ever had upon Arendelle. Wagons from the surrounding farms and smaller towns rolled over the hills. People jumped out and ran towards the cluster of tents and stands between the village and the river. "Why must I be dressed up, Mother?" a boy asked as the tight new shoes he wore pinched his toes and nearly made him trip.
"There hasn't been a fair in three years."
"That isn't my fault!"
Within the boundaries of Arendelle itself, the newcomers swarmed the streets. Some popped in and out of the shops, while others marveled at the pair of marble fountains which had been erected for the occasion. One had a plaque reading IN MEMORY OF EDMUND AND CHARITY ANDERSEN, and the other had one reading PAID FOR BY GEORGE WESELTON. A passing of the torch, or perhaps the torch being snatched away.
Most of the people, however, were crowded around the asylum. All were looking at the gates that would soon swing open. PRESENTATION TODAY, a sign hanging from them read. "Look!" a man shouted, pointing upwards. "I can see one of 'em!"
Elsa briskly closed the curtains and backed away from the window. There was no getting out of this, was there?
She sat on her bed and tried not to squirm. Her hair had been swept back and pulled into a bun so tight that it ached. Her black dress hung down to the floor and tried to drag her with it. These she would have happily endured, though, if only the embroidered green gloves would vanish.
With shaking hands, she slowly pulled one of them off and lightly touched the bedpost. Conceal it. Don't feel it. Don't let it show…
Her fingers vibrated, and a sheet of ice spread out from her skin to cover the metal.
The familiar knocking startled her and made frost line the edges of the ceiling and walls. "Elsa? Are you alright?"
"Y-Yes, Anna! Go away!"
"I only wanted to make sure you were ready."
"Nearly," she answered, quickly shoving the glove back on. "Please go."
"...Aren't you excited?"
"Yes." She had as much choice in the matter as she'd had in everything else.
