Heading for the castle proper, Anna took a shortcut through the servants' areas. Royalty weren't supposed to be down there, but everyone was used to Anna. She met a pair of chambermaids on the way and stopped them."Lissi! Ingrid! I need someone to find Olaf and bring him to my rooms right away."
Lissi stepped forward, curtseyed with a flourish that made her brown curls bob and sway, and said "Yes, Your Highness, anything you wish."
Behind her, Ingrid bobbed a curtsey and said, "Ma'am."
Lissi went on. "Ingrid's free right now. She can look for Olaf, if you like, and I can come to your rooms and assist you."
"Or we could both go and find him twice as fast," added Ingrid.
"Good thinking," said Anna, gripping Ingrid by the shoulder. "Split up and meet me at my rooms." Neither one of them seemed to notice Lissi glaring at Ingrid before they ran off.
Anna had been pacing her bedroom for twenty minutes when Lissi burst gasping through the door. She curtseyed and said, "Hello again, Your Highness. I've searched everywhere I could think of and asked everyone I could. There's no sign of Olaf anywhere. He must be in the market, or out wandering, or who knows where. I'm sorry, ma'am. But if there's anything I - "
The door opened again and Ingrid herded Olaf into the room. She bobbed. "I found Olaf, ma'am."
"Hi, Aunt Highness!" As he started to bow Ingrid came around, caught his head, and lifted it back in place.
"Good work, Ingrid," said Anna. "How'd you find him?"
"I walked through the castle and listened for chaos."
"Right. I need a minute with him. Could you wait for me there, please?" She pointed at the next room, her dressing room.
When they were gone Anna grabbed his head, bumped his body into a cupboard, and closed the door. Planting his head on a coffee table she said, "Right. We need to talk."
"Sure, anything. Just don't leave my body in there too long, okay? It's not house trained, and without my flurry he might leave a little puddle." He laughed awkwardly.
"Remember that message you were supposed to bring me? From Elsa?"
"My royal quest! Of course. How may I be of service?" A thump came from the cupboard as his body bowed.
"I want you to tell me everything you remember about what Elsa told you to do."
"Sure! She had a very important message for you, and I had to make sure you got it, and I had to make sure it didn't melt."
"Didn't melt?"
"Yeah. And then she gave me the shiny thing and I went gallantly on my way."
"What shiny thing?"
"The message. It was a piece of ice with words on it and a sculpture inside, about this long." His arms scraped against the inside of the cupboard door. "About thiiiis long." Scrape. "That is not working. Anyway, it was really pretty. So I came here as fast as I could. There were stairs, you know."
"Right." She opened her dressing room door. Lissi hurriedly turned around and closed the closet doors behind her. "I have to talk to Elsa, right now, and I need one of you to come with me."
They followed her to the outer room. "I would be honoured to assist you," said Lissi, positioning herself between Anna and Ingrid.
"Excellent." Anna tucked Olaf's head under one arm. "I'll go on ahead." She opened the cupboard. Olaf's body dashed out and tripped over a footstool. As it got up and ran in circles, she said, "You bring that. And thanks loads, it's a big help."
Anna sped down the hallway as Lissi tried to herd Olaf's body. Lissi and Ingrid heard Olaf in the distance, saying, "Go on a-head! I get it! Um, that was a joke, right?"
Elsa had dismissed her Councillors from her outer office and was gathering up documents when the doors crashed open. She looked up and saw Anna, her eyes wide and her expression manic, carrying Olaf's head. Her papers spilled on the floor. For an instant she thought, Did Anna kill Olaf? What did he do? Then she remembered how he worked, and was relieved - but still baffled.
"Elsa, we have to talk. I mean we've always had to talk, we've needed to talk for weeks, but now we really need to talk."
"Hi, Your Regality," interjected Olaf. There was a thump from just outside the room. It was the sound of a chambermaid tripping over the body of a snowman that had stopped and bowed without warning. "Funny thing," he continued. "That message you gave me to give to Anna? Seems like there was a bit of a misunderstanding. Perfectly understandable, perfectly innocent. I'm sure we'll all look back on this and laugh."
"Olaf? I want you to tell Elsa what you did when you came to deliver me her message."
"Well, you told me I had to keep the shiny thing from melting, so I- "
The door opened and Lissi, on her hands and knees, her bouncy curls now wet and plastered to her face, wrestled Olaf's body into the room. "Your Majesty, Your Highness, I have this…thing for you." She pulled herself up by the doorknob and wobbled a curtsey.
"Thank you, Lissi," said Anna. "You may go freshen up, if you like."
Lissi looked at the queen and princess, two powerful women she would do anything to be near. Then she looked at Olaf. "Thank you, ma'am. I'll go now."
Anna planted Olaf's head on his body. He shook his bottom layer back and forth. "I've still got it. Oh! By 'it' I mean your message for Anna, Your Queenitude." He shook his bottom again. "Although, to be fair, I have still got it."
"Stop!" commanded Elsa, scowling.
Anna and Olaf halted where they were.
"Right," continued Elsa. "Now, Anna." She took a breath, and her face softened into a sad smile. She took Anna's hands. "Oh Anna, it's so good to see you again, even like this. I've wanted to see you and talk with you for days and days. But I didn't know how without making things worse." Then a smile lit up her face like a sunrise. "If it takes a circus like this to let me see you again, bring on the circus. Now what's going on?"
"Olaf," said Anna, bending down with her hands on her knees to face him, "you said you still have what Elsa gave you for me?"
"You bet! Safe, sound, and snow-packed."
"Good. Now I want you to show Elsa exactly what you did when you came to bring it to me." She turned to Elsa and raised an eyebrow. "Brace yourself."
"Okay! 'Something special for you personally, by order of Her Majesty Queen Elsa.' Here we go." His eyes clenched, his tooth biting his lower lip, he strained and began to extrude that snowy cylinder again.
Anna looked away. Elsa watched in disbelief. "Oh. Oh my. Oh my God. Anna, he did that?" Anna nodded. "And he said that was a message from me?"
"Verbatim."
"Oh, I am so, so sorry. I had no idea. You must have thought…" Olaf was still making straining noises. She lunged at him, grabbed the cylinder, and yanked it out. "Oh for heaven's sake! Give me that!"
"Ooh! Once again, what an interesting sensation. Not unpleasant, all things considered." He smoothed himself flat, and aimed the back of his lower section up at his flurry. "Gotta top it up. 'Scuse me."
Elsa and Anna turned their backs to him. Elsa brushed the snow off her sculpture. To be fair to Olaf, it was still in its original condition. Elsa looked at it thoughtfully. "Anna, this is what I wanted you to have. I sent it with Olaf because you like him, and I didn't know if you'd take it from me. If I'd known…"
Anna smiled. "You couldn't have known." She accepted the flawless crystal of ice gingerly, holding it by the edges with her fingertips. She read its message, admired the frost rose trapped inside. "The petals, they're…that's what you drew in the sky for me. It's so sweet. And so beautiful. And what you've written, it's just…" Her eyes filled with tears. "It's amazing. It's lovely. I've never seen anything so…so…I said 'beautiful' already, haven't I? Well, it is. It is the most beautiful thing I could ever imagine. Ever. Thank you so much. And I am so, so sorry."
"Anna, you don't have a thing to be sorry for. You're my sister, and I missed you, and I love you with all my heart. I promise to be a sister and a friend, and that's more than enough for me."
"Well I am sorry, I'm sorry for that horrible letter I sent you. I wish Olaf had stuck that one in his butt, and left it there. Anyway, I want you to read this." She fished out an envelope addressed to Elsa. "This is the letter I wanted to send, before Olaf…you know." The envelope showed the marks of having been crumpled tightly into a ball and hurled, and then gently smoothed out again.
Elsa opened and read. "Oh. Oh Anna. Oh dear, sweet, wonderful Anna. If I had only known."
"It's not a sculpture. It's just a note."
"Anna, what you've written here is more beautiful than anything my magic could make. Ten times, a hundred times more beautiful. It's…" Can I say it? "It's the beautifullest thing ever in the history of beautiful things." They laughed gently through their tears.
"Oh, it's starting to melt!" said Anna as the crystal began to drip onto her hands. "Can you do anything? It's so amazing. How can we save it?"
"Oh no, you can't do that," said Olaf. "You see, the message of her words and her artwork is that, while the individual expressions of love or trust or beauty and all the things we hold dear may be impermanent, the ideals of love and trust and beauty can always be returned to because ideals are eternal. The fact that she expressed this in a form that is inherently impermanent simply adds to the poignancy of the message and of the thoughts and feelings she's expressing." They stared at him. "Also, I'd have to stick it back in my butt, and you guys don't seem too happy about that."
They laughed more freely this time. "Oh, Anna." Elsa set down the letter and hugged the sister she loved.
And felt Anna stiffen in her arms. Elsa stepped back and saw the shock in Anna's face, as Anna saw the pain and sadness in Elsa's. "No, no, it's okay," said Anna. "You just caught me a little off-guard, is all."
"No," said Elsa, shaking her head as her shoulders sagged. She slowly backed away. "No, I understand. I don't have that right anymore, and I know why. I would never want to make you uncomfortable ever again, not for anything."
"Elsa, no." Without thinking, Anna ran to her and hugged her warmly, freely, unselfconsciously. Elsa gingerly hugged her back and felt Anna hold her even tighter. They rocked back and forth, they sighed, they wept in each other's hair. They both felt like they had been in exile, and were finally home.
"Well, if you guys don't need me…"
"You may go, Olaf," said Elsa.
"I mean, I can see you're having a moment - "
"Go," said Anna.
"So then - "
"Shoo. Scat. Go go go," said Anna.
"Welp. Bye." And he left, proud of a job well done.