Frosted Heart
Genre: fairy tale retelling / fantasy
Length: 7.5k to 15k
Summary: a retelling of Hans Christen Anderson’s the Snow Queen, inspired by Disney’s Frozen. / while exploring the castle they call home, Anja and Ingrid discover a mirror passed down through generations. their family was meant to protect it from ever getting into the wrong hands. but when a mistake leads to the mirror shattering, one of the shards makes itself at home in Ingrid’s heart… turning her into the Snow Queen, an icy witch unable to feel. Anja knows that she must undo the curse and bring spring back to her people, and so she slips from the palace, intent on bringing her sister home.
Excerpt:
"Ingrid!" Anja hissed. "Help me get this door open!"
Ingrid frowned, tightening her grip on the candelabra. "Anja…" she said. "We really shouldn’t be here." She peered down each side of the hall. "If someone catches us…"
"Everyone’s asleep," Anja said dismissively, waving a hand. "No one is going to catch us."
“You don’t know that. Someone could wake up, and—"
“Ingrid. The longer you stand there whining, the longer it’s going to take us to get this door open, which means the easier it will be for someone to catch us." Anja was using her favorite tone—the "I’m your little sister and I know everything" tone. Ingrid hated it. "If you don’t want to get caught, help me open this door. One quick peek, and we can both go back to bed. And no one will be any the wiser!"
Ingrid pinched her lips together. "I could just go back to bed and leave you here," Ingrid said.
"But you won’t," Anja said brightly. "Because if I get caught, Maman and Papa will ask if you knew what I was doing, and you can’t lie to save your life."
"Fine."
Anja beamed. Ingrid set the candle down carefully and leaned against the door beside her sister.
The two of them couldn’t have been more different if they had tried. Where Ingrid was tall and willowy, Anja was shorter and stockier. Anja’s face was round—cherubic, her aunts called it—while Ingrid’s face was sharper—"refined"the aunts said. Anja took after their father, with his brown hair, while Ingrid was fair-haired like their mother. Anja was rosy cheeked while Ingrid was pale no matter how much sun she got. Anja had freckles in the spring and the summer while Ingrid mostly just got sun burnt.
Appearances weren’t the only things they differed on. Where Anja was daring and adventurous, Ingrid much preferred her studies. Where Anja was a whiz at maths and finances, Ingrid could recite poetry and history. Anja could sing like an angel, whereas Ingrid sounded like a dying cat. Anja fumbled at the piano keys, while Ingrid could coax the most heavenly sounds from it. Anja was blunt, Ingrid was subtle. Ingrid couldn’t lie to save her life, while Anja could spin the most daring falsehoods and anyone would believe them to be true.
Despite this, there was more that the two sisters shared than a common heritage. The most obvious was their eyes. Round like their mother’s and green like their father’s. Green as springtime, their mother liked to say. Less obvious, at least to those who didn’t know them well, was their curiosity.While Ingrid was more timid and Anja more reckless, both of them liked to know things. And neither of them liked secrets. At least, not ones they weren’t privy to.
And the castle had one big secret. One that no matter how much they eavesdropped, wheedled, researched, or asked… they couldn’t discover it. No one wanted to speak of it. So much so that, insofar as Ingrid could tell, it wasn’t even written down anywhere. And that was the contents of the southern tower.
The door was kept locked and barred. The windows, from bottom to top, were reinforced with iron bars, and kept tightly shuttered. No one ever stepped foot in or out of it—and, in fact, seemed to avoid the door entirely.
It had been this way their entire lives… and both of them were dying with curiosity.
Ingrid was patient. She could wait. The day would come when it was time they learned the secret. Her father had already told her a bit. It was an artifact, one that had been entrusted to the royal family generations ago, to be guarded and kept secret from the whole world. Her coronation day was coming—she was nearly twenty-one—and on that day, she would learn the truth of the object.
Anja was not so patient. Ingrid’s twenty-first birthday was still leagues away, as far as she was concerned. (In truth, it was but three years away. But Anja was prone to the dramatic like that.) And so for her birthday present, from Ingrid to her, she had asked to visit the tower. Like a fool, Ingrid had agreed.
They’d had to wait a few weeks before they could slip off. First were the birthday celebrations, which involved a lot of visiting from nobility and family and foreign dignitaries. Then came the send-offs, when their visitors returned to their own homes and lands, piece by piece. But finally, the time had come, and Anja had not been able to wait a minute longer. She’d dragged Ingrid out of bed at some ungodly hour, and now they stood here, side by side, shoulders against the heavy door, pushing with all their might.
Until finally, it gave way.
Ingrid thought for sure that the terrible squeal would wake someone. But it didn’t. The hall, the castle itself, remained deathly silent.
She picked the candle back up. Anja bounced on her toes. "Let’s go!"
Ingrid peered over Anja’s head, into the dark of the tower. She shivered.Spring air shouldn’t have been so cold. But as Anja started up the stairs, Ingrid knew that she would follow.
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forever tag: @aslanwrites; @alternativeforensicscientist; @idreamonpaper
I’m also tagging @dogwrites because you seemed interested when I posted the first lines earlier??
