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Three years had passed since Anna became queen, and Arendelle was still frozen. The kingdom was like a desolate wasteland; its people had long since moved away to other lands. The winter was in standstill. Move outside of the boundaries of where the storm stopped and you reentered summer; but return within them and you would find yourself back in endless winter. The kingdom was almost like a challenge to explorers of the wilderness. Come within , Arendelle seemed to beckon. Dare to stay in a world of ice and snow .
Anna and Kristoff never left. Gerda and Kai had stayed too, but in the end, the cold claimed them too. It was laughable at best – she was nothing but the queen of a kingdom of isolation. There was no trade. No diplomacy. No ships sailing to send aid. It was almost as if Arendelle no longer existed – and in a sense, it didn’t. It was nothing but a frozen kingdom, buried under snow that would never melt.
No one understood why. Three years ago, Hans of the Southern Isles had killed Elsa, just as Kristoff and Anna shared true love’s kiss, only noticing a moment too late as the sword pierced her body. Anna had been furious; it was only through Kristoff’s interference that Hans left Arendelle with his life. Although he would never admit it, Kristoff could see that something cold had hardened Anna’s heart, and it wasn’t the ice. She’d watched as the parties of Weselton and all of Arendelle’s trade partners left the kingdom one by one. At last, Hans’ brothers came to collect him, giving Anna not even so much as an apology.
Three years. Three tortuous, arduous years. And it seemed as pointless as trying to grow a garden in Arendelle. Anna had tried; but in the end, they were forced to make trips to other kingdoms, selling Arendelle’s most prized possessions one by one in exchange for food. They called her the Beggar Queen; the Frozen Queen; the Ice Queen. Elsa had been the Snow Queen; but Anna, with her increasingly cold demeanour, had earned the title of Queen of Ice.
Anna held back the tears as she overlooked her still-frozen kingdom. She didn’t understand. Elsa was gone – so why had the storm stayed, even when Olaf faded away? Why had the ice never melted, the snow never thawed? And why hadn’t she been observant enough to notice Hans’ sword before it had taken Elsa from her? Perhaps, in a different life, things turned out differently. Perhaps Elsa survived, the winter ended, and they’d lived happily ever after. But this wasn’t it. This was something far colder than that.
“Anna,” Kristoff said quietly. “I managed to secure us passage to Elmsberg. The king and queen have generously offered us a home. We can have stability, Anna. But the carriage comes tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Anna said furiously. “Kristoff, you didn’t!”
“We’ve been living in eternal winter for three years, Anna! The castle is all but empty because we couldn’t even make our own food! No one lives here except for us and a bunch of overzealous survivalists!”
“This is my home! This is all I’ve ever known – and I am not leaving it, or Elsa!”
“Anna, please. You’re going to die if you stay here.”
“Then so be it.”
“Alright. Fine. You can’t say that I didn’t try.”
Anna finally tore her eyes away from the window. “You’re leaving me?”
“I’ve got to move on, Anna. I tried. I really tried to make this work. I thought that maybe if I stayed to help you pick up the pieces, then maybe you’d be able to move on. But clearly I was wrong. I tried so hard to fix things for you that I didn’t realise I was breaking apart.”
“I don’t need to be fixed. I never did.”
“You’re living in the past, Anna. You’re holding on to a sister we both know is never coming back.”
“You take that back right now!” she screamed, getting up abruptly and pushing him against the wall.
“You have to face the truth, Anna! Elsa is dead!”
“SHE WOULDN’T BE IF YOU HADN’T KISSED ME!”
“You were about to freeze over!”
“And because of that, she’s gone!”
Anna stepped away, panting. Kristoff looked at her, it finally dawning on him that whatever hope he’d been holding onto should’ve died a long time ago. The woman in front of him wasn’t the one he’d met three years ago at Wandering Oaken’s. Time had hardened her. Years of keeping all of her emotions pent up had changed her. Her grief had frozen her heart far worse than Elsa’s magic ever could’ve. He laid his hea dagainst the cold stone wall, suddenly aware of just how cold the castle was, even with the fire crackling in the fireplace. He looked around the room. It was lifeless, the colour sucked out of the walls, the sole painting of Anna’s family staring down at them icily.
“What happened to us, Anna?”
“You tried too hard to fix what you couldn’t,” she said coldly.
He slowly picked himself up, outstretching his hand to Anna.
“Come with me. We can start a new life. Maybe raise a family. Build a snowman. It’s what Elsa would’ve wanted for you.”
She pushed his hand away, returning to her place at the window and looking out at the frozen fjords. “Don’t tell me what she would’ve wanted.”
“Look, Anna. I barely even met Elsa, but from everything you told me, I know she loved you, and I know she wouldn’t have wanted you to lose yourself over her.”
“Well, it’s like you said – she’s dead. It doesn’t matter what she wanted anymore, because she’s dead, and I am not. I am queen, and here I’ll stand. Here I’ll stay. Even if it kills me.”
“Queen of what, Anna?”
“Go,” she said forcefully. “Go live your perfect cottage life. You’ll know where to find me if you ever want to come back.”
“I thought we loved each other. I... I was wrong.”
“What do you know about love, Kristoff?”
“Nothing,” he admitted. “Goodbye, Anna.”
Anna said nothing even as Kristoff left her in the room. A pang of sadness pierced her heart, and a solitary tear slid down her cheek. She continued looking out the window, just like she’d used to when she was little, when the snow fell down gently outside. She’d wanted so desperately for Elsa to open up her door and play with her, but she never did. There was so much she’d lost. To her parents and their overprotectiveness. To Hans and his lust for power. To the Duke of Weselton for his self-centred obsession with Elsa. To Kristoff and his puppy crush on her. To Elsa, who’d hadn’t tried to reach out to her until it was too late, and even still pulled away.
She was a woman of her word. She was going to stay in her kingdom until it was as dead as her sister. Until she herself was dead.
Kristoff took one final melancholy glance at her before trudging out to the stables, where Sven still waited patiently by the makeshift fire they’d made. He sighed as he leaned against him, taking his lute out.
“Reindeers are better than people. Sven, don’t you think I’m right? ”
Sven looked at him sympathetically. "Yeah, people will hurt you and leave you and freeze you, everyone of ‘em’s bad except you.”
“But people love harder than reindeers. Sven, why is love so hard? ”
“You feel what you feel, and your pain’s just as real, Kristoff you’ve got to heal now.”
Kristoff allowed himself to cry as the moon rose in the sky on his final night in Arendelle.
“Oh, Anna,” he sobbed. “Why couldn’t you just let it go?”