Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

        The walls and floors gleamed as light was reflected around the palace. In the light of day the place glowed. Light bounced through the floors, into walls and off of ceilings. Elsa loved it, she was surrounded by light. It seemed to lift her up, buoy her above a past that always threatened to drag her down.

        She closed her eyes and waved her hands spinning into a dance she didn’t know the steps to, and didn’t care. Below her railings and stairs grew out of walls, ice creaking and snapping as crystalline structures realigned themselves to her will.

        She never knew just how much…power she had. This feeling of being able to reshape the world, there was a small elation as she could feel each little atom fall into place. A thrill as a lattice formed itself into a mathematically perfect structure. She walked down her steps into what would be the receiving chamber. As she walked Ice rose up under her feet, ad more steps grew out. The palace wasn’t just a place for her to live. It was part of her. She could feel it all around her. This is what a queen should feel like. Not like a small girl left alone in her room.

        Elsa raised her hand and a stream of frost shot out of the floor. Spilling out everywhere the frost touched slowly coalesced into shapes, a hexagon rising and thinning, a second tier, a third. A powdered fountain of ice took shape, until she brushed her hand against it. The frost shot away leaving only perfectly clear, gleaming ice.

        Elsa smiled. It looked perfect, just like the real thing. What else could she make?

She turned, with the wave of her arm snow flittered from her hands forming and growing and soon sitting there was a doll. Two dolls, her’s and Anna’s. She reached down, and they crumbled in her hands. With a little ‘hmm’ she stood up, and held her hand over the dolls. Snow streamed from her hand down into the dolls. It just wasn’t the right snow. It needed to be wetter, or larger. It wasn’t the right structure.  She poured more and more thought into it. She remembered the weave of the yarn that made the dolls hair, the stitching along the edges of their legs, the mended dress that Gerda had fixed. The days and night Anna and she had played with them. The names they’d given them. One was a princess, and the other was the queen.

        She wavered, stumbling under the pressure in her own mind. Catching herself against the fountain, she panted as a fog of snow slowly billowed out and settled before her. Slowly, out of the cloud two shapes appeared. They stepped forward.

        “Wh-what?”

        The two dolls looked at her, little crystal eyes staring out at the world. They waved. Elsa gave a little wave back. The two dolls then ran off down a little corridor, they held hands. If they had mouths Elsa was sure they would be giggling.

       

        Elsa stared at her hands.

Did… Did she just… were they…?

        They were alive… She could…

        Before she knew it, she was back in her room, if one could think of only one room as hers in the palace. She could feel her heart breaking through her chest.

        Life.

She made life. She thought of something, she saw it in her mind and she made it real, like the palace. But it was alive. Alive.

        She thought of her mother and father. The last time she saw them. They were going to be home soon and then they were gone forever.

        No. Not forever.

        She put out her hands and closed her eyes. Her mother and father smiled at her, a hug, the smell of her father’s clothes. The memories filled her head. Dinner’s together, laughter at jokes, birthdays, anniversaries. Balls, parties. She could feel tears streaming down her face. It was too much. She felt her knees buckle and she fell. Elsa looked up through stinging eyes and quickly freezing tears. Her father and mother stood before her, completely perfect, except they were made of snow.

        They didn’t move, “M…m-momma? Papa?” Elsa got up and came closer. There wasn’t even the slightest flicker of life. She could feel more tears welling up; she walked away from the couple.

        Of course… it was stupid to think she could do it… a doll… that was nothing, but people? People had to have been different. She leaned against the wall and slid down, bringing her knees to her chest. She couldn’t bring them back.

        Elsa didn’t know what time it was when it happened, all she knew was that eventually there was a pressure on her shoulder. She looked up into the worried face of her father.

        “Pa…Father?”

He nodded.

        She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the snow man, “I missed you so much.” She could feel his soft arms wrap around her shoulders. Soon she felt another pair of arms, more slender, and delicate, she found her mother smiling brightly at her, the sun shining through the diadem placed in her hair. The girl sobbed into the arms of her parents. The embrace was warm, so warm she thought she would melt.

        They were the only ones that knew, the only ones that understood, “Please don’t leave…” she said “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”