The Snow Queen

A Connection

The sight of daybreak from where he stood was incomparable to anything he'd seen so far. Jack felt like he could see the entire world as he watched the sun crest over the jagged ridges of the mountaintops. The chilly breeze didn't even faze him. If only everyone back home knew what they were missing.

"Sunrise," Elsa commented as they watched, another word she now knew.

"Mhm." Jack grinned. "I've never seen one like this." He sounded breathless. "It's beautiful." A new word? They glanced at each other. "Beautiful." He said slowly.

"Beautiful." She smiled. She knew that word was used for only good things that made humans' eyes twinkle like Jack's were now. Her own eyes glowed a heavenly hue against the early sun's rays.

He gazed again. "You know, we have a story that says the sun is the sister of the moon." Elsa looked curiously at him and nodded for him to continue. "The sun's name is actually Sól, and the moon is named Máni. They're the children of the God Mundilfari. Apparently, they're chased across the sky by wolves, that's why they're always setting and rising." Elsa was fascinated; who knew humans had such mysterious and interesting thoughts about the skies above? Jack began to wonder something as he told her this story—did she ever have anyone to tell her such things? Any prior knowledge of the people around her's beliefs and ideas? "Have you always been up here?" He asked her. "Were you always alone?"

Something in her eyes made Jack believe she could understand the magnitude of the question. Her fine blonde hair blew in the wind and she looked off in the distance before turning back. "I'm not sure." Her voice had the strangest effect on him, it seemed to turn his bones into water. She spoke so well in such a short span of time!

"Did you have a mother? A father? Anyone?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I am what I am. I always have been." She sounded so content, something he hadn't expected from such an inquiry. Jack wished he felt the same way. But now he wanted to know more.

"Are there others like you?"

Elsa shook her head, for she didn't know herself. He concluded that if there were, they would've likely found each other by now. There were so many other things Jack wanted to ask but didn't know if she was ready to answer. What did she think when she first saw a human? What did she think when she first saw him? Was he the first to show her sympathy? He even wondered what Elsa would think if he said he didn't believe she was real until he finally saw her in person. Did she age like him? Was she really a young woman or was she ancient? So many questions this early made his head spin and Jack walked away from the ledge and back towards the 'courtyard' of her ice palace. It was already cold, but Jack liked the cold, and this was a venture too rewarding to abandon so quickly. Just a day or two, he'd told himself, then she'd take him home.

He hadn't thought of what he'd tell his family... what excuse would he have for vanishing out of nowhere? He didn't even care at that point, everything out here was so open, so vast that he didn't want to think about the confines of his village again. Maybe he'd tell Mary the truth, it could be their special secret. Jack wanted a look around this accursed 'Dead Man's Peak,' and so he asked Elsa if they could go for a walk. She took him to a grove of willow trees, all of which were covered in ice and glowed like crystals in the daytime sun. Jack had never seen anything quite like this; all he had at home were the spruce and oaks. Elsa watched as he reached up and playfully bat at the frozen vines. She still wasn't sure how to start a conversation, since she'd never had anyone to speak to until now—but just to be in another's company was enough. And her silent habit wasn't at all strange to Jack.