This Icy Force Both Foul and Fair Has a Frozen Heart Worth Mining

Meeting Elsa, the Snow Queen

I shook my head, bringing my mind back to why I entered the ice palace in the first place; to make sure Anna was alright. I did not see her anywhere. I did, however, spot Olaf skating around the fountain like a professional, giggling and humming up a storm to himself. It was like he was happily taking advantage of the slippery ice that made up the floor. I approached him. 

"Olaf, where's Anna?" I asked him. 

Olaf stopped his ice dancing just long enough to answer my question. "She went upstairs with Elsa," he told me, pointing to one of the staircases. 

I looked at the twin staircases. Should I follow them up? Anna did tell me to wait outside, and I would have hated to disrupt them. But, she had been inside for a long time. And, I did not trust Elsa the way Anna seemed to. I made up my mind to follow them upstairs. 

Olaf went along with me. "Where are we going?" he asked innocently and cheerfully as though we were going on an adventure of some kind. 

"To find Anna," I told him bluntly, while trying to be gentle at the same time, but I probably failed at that, too. 

"OK," he replied accepting it. 

These stairs were just as perfectly flawless as the ones which were outside on the staircase that lead to here, but even larger and so much grander. I could not help but admire their detail as well as the rest of this palace. When I reached the top of the first staircase, I quickly realized that there was yet another staircase waiting at the top of this one. This place was enormous. It really was a palace. Still, I did not have the luxury of time on my side to appreciate this place properly. 

I came closer to the second staircase. Shortly afterwards, I started to hear distant singing voices. I could not make out what they were saying, but I could tell that they were the voices of women. The voices of Anna and her sister, Elsa, acted like a sirens' song as I quickened my pace up the staircase. 

I followed the voices down the hall. At the end of it, I saw Anna standing in the center of the room, talking animatedly to someone who was out of my line of vision. Then, there seemed to be a contained snow storm flurrying around inside the room as the two of them spoke... actually they seemed like they were both arguing by the sound of their voices. And yet, I still could not really hear a word of what they were saying. 

I cautiously moved closer to the room, trying to decipher what exactly was happening at that moment. Suddenly, all of the snow in the room was swept away in one direction, momentarily disappearing into a strange kind of light. But then, it suddenly burst back out in violently billowing blizzard going in all directions, along with a loud, "I CAN'T!" 

I saw the blizzard hit Anna. She clutched onto her chest where she had been hit and began to stumble backwards, keeling over. I suddenly felt a strong sense of panic overtake me as I watched her fall to her knees, still clutching onto her chest. Without much thinking, I rushed to her side, shouting her name. "Anna!" I cried out to her. "Are you OK?" I asked her, putting my hand on her shoulder. 

"I'm OK," she replied. 

Then, she rose back up to her feet. "I'm fine!" she told me, toughing out her pain. 

"Who's this?" I suddenly heard someone else ask. 

It was the other person in the room. I got a good look at them and immediately realized who they were. This woman was no doubt the queen of Arendelle, Anna's sister, Elsa. I admit that I simply had to give her points for the way she was dressed. Just like her palace, she was quite elegant and refined with her long blue dress and that sheer cape, both of which seemed to be made purely out of ice crystals. Even her light platinum blonde, almost white hair had snowflakes braided into it. This woman really knew how to make a first impression. 

Still, the way she looked emotionally was not the way I had expected her to be like, but it still was not anything good. She did not look angry to see her sister, no. She also did not look happy to see Anna, though, either. She actually looked a bit more scared of seeing her sister for the first time since her self-inflicted exile than upset. I knew Elsa might be a bit upset to see Anna arrive at her doorstep, but I did not expect her reaction to seeing even her own sister to be one of fear. 

Did Elsa strike Anna by accident? How much control over her powers did Elsa even have, if any at all? And most of all, what can we do about the eternal winter if Elsa seemed to have little to no control over her ice powers? 

She looked confusedly and worriedly at me, but then shook her head in a forced attempt to pull herself together. "Wait, i-it doesn't matter," she told her sister. "Just... you have to go," she said desperately. 

"No, I know we can figure this out together," Anna tried to reassure Elsa that she did not have to live her life in fear. 

Elsa looked at her sister desperately. "But, how?" she asked Anna. "What power do you have to stop this winter?" Elsa asked Anna in despair. "To stop me?" she asked worriedly. 

I began to notice ice spikes and dark shadows forming from the walls around us. The floor also began to creak beneath our feet. I instinctively put a protective arm around Anna. "Anna, I think we should go," I told her as calmly as I tried to be. 

"No, I'm not leaving without you, Elsa." It was no use. Anna seemed very dead set on bringing her sister back to Arendelle with her. Was falling for her prince really true love or was she just desperate to fill a void in her heart left by a previous closeness she actually used to have with her sister? 

Either way, right now, Elsa looked as though she was close to tears, like she was about to do something she knew was wrong, and was also something she looked like she seemed to already know she would regret later. "Yes, you are," she said firmly, but with a hint of sadness in her voice. 

She waved her hands and swirls of ice and snow emanated from her palms onto the floor. The ice on the floor began to swirl around and rise up, growing bigger and bigger until it stretched all the way towards the ceiling.