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I'm not sure how I got here. I'm really not. One minute, everything was fine, I was playing with the Andersen kids down by their farm like Elsa tells me to every day, the next minute, I'm... here.
It's pretty here, for sure. It reminds me of standing in the palace courtyard, looking up at the aurora. Except there isn't an aurora here. Just stars. Lots and lots of stars. In fact, there are more stars here than I've ever seen at the palace.
I wonder where Elsa is. She'd know what to do. She's the best mother ever, even though she says not to call her that. So does Anna. Sometimes I think of Elsa as mom and Anna as mommy. That's how I keep them straight in my head. Both of them say not to call them that, but I don't know what else to call them.
Do you call your parents by their first names?
I call them that because they are like my mom and mommy. They hold hands, they kiss, they sleep in the same bedroom, all the things I read about in kids' books that I sometimes read when I'm babysitting. The only thing they don't have like other moms and dads is rings on their fingers. I asked Elsa about that once and she told me to shush.
Wait, I think I hear something in the distance. This is pretty neat, wherever we are. Snow and ice and cold, just the stars in the sky above. No wind, either. There's a moon in the sky, too, except it's... well, it's the wrong color. It's blue. Like Elsa's ice dress blue. And, wait, no, there's another moon in the sky too. That's neat. I've never seen anything like that before.
There's so much snow. It feels really nice. This is super soft snow, too. It feels really nice to walk on. I wonder if Elsa made it? Elsa makes the best snow for everything.
There's that noise again. I'm going to go see what it is. I wish I could walk better. Anna says I waddle. Elsa just smiles and says I'm perfect the way I am.
It sounds like... huh, that's weird. It sounds like Elsa, but it sounds like Elsa when she's crying. I wonder why. I'm going to go find out.
That walk took a really long time. If Elsa made this snow for walking, she made too much of it. It was up to my nose sometimes. But hey, I found her! I found Elsa. She was sitting on the ground, in the snow, looking up at the stars too. I think she was crying, but she stopped by the time I got to her. I don't know why, but she kept saying "Why?" over and over again. I told her that the stars were really pretty and we should appreciate them, just like Anna says.
I guess that wasn't the right thing to say. She just burst into tears and collapsed in a heap next to a mound of snow.
Actually, no, that's not a mound of snow. I was wrong. It's really dark here except for the stars. That's an ice sculpture! It's a really good one too. It's better than the ones Elsa does every holiday in the palace courtyard. I'll compliment it. That should cheer her up.
No, no, that didn't cheer her up at all. I don't know why. That's a really nice ice sculpture of Anna. It's so detailed.
Actually, it kind of looks familiar.
Oh.
It's like that time Anna froze into an ice sculpture. She was walking through the snow with Kristoff and Sven, and just barely made it to Elsa before she froze solid.
Well, that's easy enough to fix. Elsa said back then that love thaws, and true love's kiss should make things right again.
Nope. Elsa said that only works for magic. And she says we're somewhere that isn't magic. I asked her why love isn't magic everywhere and she started crying again.
Maybe I should stop talking for a little while. I'll give her some space. I know! I'll go for a walk. Anna says sometimes when she needs to think, she goes for walks. She said any time I'm thinking about neat facts, I should, too.
What is an ice planet anyway? What does that mean?
I've been walking for hours. I suppose if this planet is entirely made of ice, it's a good thing I'm made of ice and snow, too. I won't ever have to worry about melting.
Maybe I should ask Elsa to make me some more brothers. The ones in the ice palace are always fun to play with. If this planet is made of snow and ice, we could all play together for a long time and never have to worry about melting.
I think I'm lost.
Wait, no, there's my footprints from earlier. I'm going in the right direction. Good thing there isn't any wind here.
Huh.
Elsa's missing.
Wait, no, there she is.
They look so peaceful together. Elsa's curled up against Anna like they are in the mornings at the palace. Except... she says she's freezing and she's tired. That's weird. The cold never bothered her before.
I guess I'll just look at the stars until Elsa wakes up. Or maybe I'll go for another walk in the snow. It seems silly to waste all this snow Elsa made.
It sure is quiet here.
It's really quiet here.
Maybe if I-
Author's Notes
This fic was part of the August 2022 Elsanna Shenanigans contest. The Obol of Charon refers to the mythological coins placed in the mouth of the dead before crossing into the afterlife. In the context of this story, it's a literal reference to the dwarf planet Pluto, an ice planet. And yes, this is purely fiction; oxygen deprivation would have killed Elsa and Anna faster than the cold would have.
The bonus challenge was to tell the story from a POV we don't normally write in... like Olaf's.
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