Elsa Comes Out: Up on the Hill.

        Kristoff ran, chasing Sven through the halls of the house his footsteps echoing as he bounded over the wooden floors. His mother ran after him long bright blond hair bound up in a braid bouncing behind her. The both of them laughed as they both caught their quarry, tumbling together along the floor.

        Arendelle’s Royal Ice Harvester pulled the quilt around him as the room chilled him. He didn’t remember leaving the window open before he went to sleep. He opened his eyes, tears surprisingly staining his vision. He wiped them away, along with lethargy of sleep.

        The single window in his castle apartment was indeed open; a soft wind of snow blew in. It must have been opened by a breeze in the night. With a groan Kristoff pulled himself from the covers of the bed. By the time he’d gotten to the window the snow that had blown in was already melted, leaving small puddles on the floor and dark stains on the carpet.

        It wasn’t snowing outside. No, the sun shone bright in the sky, though clouds were threatening out at sea. Kristoff hope it wasn’t enough of a storm to upset any boats returning to harbor. He slid his hand along the smooth wood when his fingers fumbled over something that rolled away. Kristoff picked it up.

It was a tiny little snowman made of ice.

        He couldn’t help but chuckle as he shook his head. It was almost like crystal, it was so clear. Kristoff was sure he could cast rainbows around the room with it, there wasn’t even a single seam or cut mark. Of course there wouldn’t be. Kristoff set it down. It was a little sad, it’d have melted by noon, he thought a little depressingly. He looked out over the ocean again, watching little cresting waves untenanted with ice. There hadn’t been a freeze in a while so he’d had depressingly little to do, and it looked like today wouldn’t be any different. If he craned his neck and leaned out the window he could just barely see the mountains, evergreens dusted in snow, rising up, coddling the little dell that the city sat in.

        Kristoff smiled and went to struggled into his clothes.

 

        The muscles in his shoulder bunched as he stretched his arms over his head, yawning away his drowsiness. Going out and about would be good, Sven could use the exercise, Kristoff would never tell him but he was getting a little fat in the castle stables.

        Speaking of the stables, out in the small courtyard the stables occupied Sven was already walking out and about, a slim man in a heavy winter coat was leading the reindeer along and patting his side.

        “Hey now, Sven, you’ve got a friend?” Kristoff called as he entered the courtyard, “Since when do you make friends so quickly?”

        “Oh, I think we could be fast friends,” the man said, turning.

The voice was obvious enough, “Elsa?”

        The queen was all bundled up in a heavy coat; fur trimmed the hems of the coat and the hood that she had pulled up over her head. Her braid stuck out by her neck, a little tassel of platinum peeking out from a sea of grey and dark tan fuzz. She had similar colored pants, the same slate grey as the coat. Something about the absurd outfit on the Snow Queen was endearing.

        “Hey,” she said, giving Sven another pat on his neck, “Looks like we had the same idea.”

        “Why are you even wearing that?” Kristoff asked as the queen brought Sven over. The reindeer was happily plodding along behind Elsa. He had on a harness with the official royal seal.

        Ahh Kristoff thought, all dressed up.

        “Well everyone would notice if a girl just rode out of town in winter in some silly dress,” Elsa said. She looked Kristoff up and down. He was wearing his usual winter gear. The same clothes he’d wear to go harvesting. His outfit was much like her own, save that his had the red trimming on the edges that hers lacked.

        “Elsa’s running away again,” Sven ‘said’ Kristoff grinned at the queen.

        “It’s not running away if people know about it,” Elsa said, tightening Sven’s harness.

        “Well I didn’t know,” Kristoff complained.

        “If I told you, I wouldn’t get to see your mouth gape like it did,” Elsa giggled looking back at him, “So, do you want to build a snowman?”

 

        Unlike in the city, the hills and trees overlooking the small valley still sported a cloak of snow across the grass, well, except for the bare spot picked clean by Elsa and Kristoff. Elsa sat on a stump watching Kristoff pack snow together forming a head for their little snowman, Sven fussed over things and the two of them were talking.

        “No Sven, he can’t have cheeks that big, he’ll look like a squirrel full of nuts.”

        “But he’ll look adorable.”

        “He needs a larger chin.”

        “It makes him look like a brute”

        “Hey, I have a strong chin!”

        “Exactly!”

Kristoff laughed to himself as he crunched a handful of the white stuff onto the snowman’s face. Elsa giggled at the conversation and got up.

        “Who say’s it’s a ‘he?’”

        “I do”

        “Well, I’m queen, I say it’s a she.”

Kristoff grinned, “You can’t be the queen. She’s got a little crown and she wears pretty dresses. You’re just some girl in a coat.”

        Elsa pulled the man’s hat down over his eyes.

        “Hey!”

In the end they ended up with a slightly mushy looking snowman, no hard strong noble chin, no real evidence that it was a girl it was just, well, a snow man.  Elsa seemed to like it anyway. She took off her gloves and ran her fingers over it, feeling the little bumps in the snow. She smiled and as her hands slid along the surface the snow started to slough off the pair’s little creation revealing solid, clear and beautiful ice underneath.

        “If you were going to do that in the first place, why’d we even bother?”

        “Because,” Elsa said, watching as more and more ice was revealed, “It. It wouldn’t have been as much fun.” She took a step back. The iceman gleamed in the light; it might as well have been made of diamond.

        “Well that is… something.” Kristoff said, coming closer to Elsa’s creation.

Elsa smiled and walked away from it, sitting down in the grass and looking out over the hills, you could just barely see some pennants from the castle fluttering in the wind.

        She looked back at Kristoff looking over the snowman he’d made.

        “You must really like ice, being able to make things like this,” Kristoff said after a while, mostly to himself. He took off his own gloves and felt just how smooth and perfect the ice really was, just like the one in his room this morning.

        Some people at court had mentioned something similar, asking her things like if she liked winter more than summer, or if she could even feel heat. She scoffed at the thought. Of course she felt heat. She loved being warm. All bundled up in a warm cloak, or curled in a nice warm bed. She just, well, never felt uncomfortable from the cold. And as for winter, or snow, she never really understood the questions. Snow, ice, they were just things. You may as well ask someone if they liked or preferred breathing. It was just natural to Elsa; she’d been able to do these things all her life.

        She remembered when she snuck up to Kristoff’s cabin in the summer, watched him cutting up ice blocks in the mountains. She’d liked that. She could make ice easily enough. She could make a palace, or sculptures. If she could see it in her head she could make it. Blocks were nothing for her.

        But when Kristoff made things, even those simple hunks, they were different. She only had to think of it, and the magic would do the rest. Kristoff, he worked at it. When he carved things for Anna, or sliced up ice, he put sweat into it. He put his soul into it. For some reason everything he’d made looked more, well, real. He’d made the snowman, she’d just made it ice. It looked real enough to her. Elsa turned back to the hills and lay down, looking up into the sky. Dark clouds were just starting to thread themselves overhead, but plenty of blue could still be seen.

        Kristoff sat down next to her and watched the clouds slowly roll along the icy blue above them.

        “This was uh. A good idea,” he said, Elsa could hear him lay down, “No offense to the castle but, it’s just so boring…”

        “I thought you had those other men, your friends at the harbor?”

        “To help clear the ice? Ehh,” Kristoff said, shrugging his shoulders, “They’re not really the most, you know, happy bunch. Unless they’re drunk.”

        Elsa giggled looking at the man before turning her head back to the sky. Kristoff seemed to know all sorts of people. Harbor workers, bartenders, warehouse managers. He probably had drinking buddies, people who said his name when he walked in not because he was important to everyone, but because he was important to them.

        “How do you do it?” the queen asked.       

        “Huh?”

        “How do you, you know, make friends? Talk to people so easily?”

        “Uh… because uh. I have to? You kind of made it my job.”

        “Oh right…”

Kristoff looked at her. Elsa just looked up into the sky brows knotted together.

        “Why are you even asking about this? You talk to people all the time.”

        “But not really! Not… Not like this.” Elsa sighed, “You, Anna, Olaf… you’re pretty much the only people I know. The only person other than you three I’ve ever talked to was Auntie when she was here. With everyone else I feel like I’m. I’m-”

        “On thin ice?” Kristoff suggested.

        “On egg shells,” Elsa said, glaring at the blond.

        A humid blast of air hit her face and she craned her head back and was met face to face with possibly the largest nose she’d ever seen.

        “What about me?” Sven ‘asked’

        “Alright the four of you, “But I’m not like Anna. I can’t just… just walk up to people. I can’t just be their friend…”

        “Because it’s always worked well for Anna?”

        “Your sister tries to marry someone once and you never hear the end of it…” Elsa said with a weak smile.

 They lulled into a silence as the clouds rolled off, a blanket coming to cover the sky in a dark grey, and from the look of it, the ground in a pure white. Elsa let out a depressed sigh and dropped her hands to her sides.

        A small cloud drifted over head, ahead of the front blowing in, it looked almost like a flower.

        “If it were me, I wouldn’t worry about it much,” Kristoff said, “Those guys… they’re not really… I’m pretty happy with our little family of friends.”

        He kept on looking at the flowery cloud.

        Elsa looked at him, his hands on his chest as he stared out at the sky. A family would be nice. Just her and Anna and Kristoff, Sven and Olaf. Maybe she could do with that. The queen looked away. She had to remember he wasn’t courting her. This was… pretend. She’d stop when Anna came back. It was only fine because Anna wasn’t here.

        She looked back at his hands. Had she ever held them? Not when they were in bed but just, around the castle? Just to show she liked him? Why should she want to, it wasn’t like she hadn’t already felt his hands against her.

        Elsa reached over and tugged at Kristoff’s arm, taking his hand and sliding her fingers between his. They laid there watching the sky until a light snow began to fall.