They stopped for about half an hour to break out warmer clothing, which only Elsa did not need, then they pressed on past the snow line. Elsa set a quick pace.

They found a nice spot surrounded by rock on two sides, which sheltered them from the wind, and the servants began to set up camp.

Half a mile above them was the ice palace. Elsa stood, gazing at it wistfully. Anna walked up to her and looked up, also, assessing the climb they would have to make.

There was not as much snow on the North Mountain as there had been the night Elsa created the palace. She guessed most of the snow that night had come from her. But there was still a fair amount of snow on the great peak even in summer.

It wouldn't be a difficult climb, but they would have to navigate a couple of tricky outcroppings of rock. They would also be trudging through snow, and watching out for hidden pockets of deep snow into which they could fall, which would slow Elsa down just as much as it would anyone else. And then they'd have to do it again on the way back.

None of this was of any real concern, except for one issue: the day was almost over.

"Do you want to wait until tomorrow?" Anna asked.

"No," Elsa said quietly. She seemed mesmerized by the sight of the palace. "No, I really, really want to get up there as soon as possible."

Anna almost asked why, but decided not to. She could tell that Elsa was feeling deeply emotional about returning to the palace. Instead, she said, "We have about an hour of light remaining, and the quarter moon won't rise until well after midnight. I really don't want to come down the mountain in the dark, or spend the night up there. You think we can get up there quickly enough, and spend enough time to make it meaningful, and still get back?"

Elsa smiled. "I know we can!" Over her shoulder, she spoke to the captain of the guard. "Please do not be alarmed by what I'm about to do."

Mystified, the guard captain nodded.

Elsa grinned at Anna. "Follow me!"

Anna felt a rush of excitement. She was still coming to terms with the fact that her sister, who was usually so regal and proper, actually had a fantastic mischievous streak. Anna had found that out the hard way the night of the coronation ball, when Elsa had said, "I don't dance...but my sister does!"

Anna could see the same gleam in Elsa's eyes now.

When they were about 200 meters above the camp site, Elsa stood facing the palace. Anna stood beside her, and Elsa took her hand. The gleam in Elsa's eyes was brighter than ever.

"Trust me?" Elsa asked.

"Always."

"Then hold on!"

They rose off the ground.

"Oh!" Anna cried in surprise, bracing herself against the unexpected movement.

They were suddenly standing on a platform of ice about five feet square, surrounded by an ice wall which was chest high. And the platform was rising into the sky.

"Oh, and you might not want to look down," Elsa said casually.

Of course, the moment she said this, Anna couldn't help but look over the wall and down, and her heart leapt into her throat when she saw how high they already were. Her legs began shaking.

She turned to Elsa, but the queen was grinning from ear to ear and bouncing on her feet. She squeezed Anna's hand.

After about half a minute, the movement stopped. The wind was quite strong at this height, so Elsa made the walls a few feet higher.

"What did you do?" Anna gasped.

"I just built an enormous hill of ice beneath us."

Elsa opened a hole in the wall in front of them, and together, they looked down. They were now several hundred meters higher than the ice palace. They had only moved vertically, so the palace was still about half a mile away.

As Anna watched, Elsa extended the front of her new ice hill so that it almost reached the palace staircase. Then she formed a chute, in the form of a half pipe, from the top of the hill to the bottom, ending at a point next to the staircase. The front wall dissolved away to reveal the top of the chute directly in front of them.

It was an ice slide hundreds of meters long, leading to the palace stairs. The ground was so far below them that Anna felt like she was standing at the top of the sky.

"Still trust me?" Elsa asked.

Anna trembled, and tried to find the strength. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. "I'm very frightened right now, but yes, I trust you absolutely." And suddenly Anna felt complete serenity. Even if Elsa was about to make a mistake, she didn't care. Trusting Elsa meant more to her than life itself. If Elsa led her wrong, so be it. She would die, trusting her sister to the end.

"Great!" Elsa said. "Here we go!"

And the bottom dropped out from beneath them as Elsa slanted the platform and sent them down the slide.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Anna screamed.

Elsa laughed with all her soul, and it was a laughter more full of life than Anna had ever heard from anyone.

Elsa quickly realized that she had vastly underestimated this entire operation, for after just the first few seconds, they were already rocketing at breakneck speed. But strangely, she didn't panic.

They were slipping from side to side enough that they were in danger of going over the edge of the half pipe and being flung out, so Elsa quickly formed a curved roof over the slide, making it a tube. This plunged the slide into darkness for a moment, so Elsa adjusted the thickness and purity of the overhead ice so that it was transparent, thus letting in the sunlight. She did it without even having to think about it.

With that danger averted, Elsa then reformed the slide in front of them to curve sharply left and right, again and again, hoping that would reduce their speed. As she did, she suddenly realized one of her most awesome powers: she could sense the entire architecture of the hill and the slide even though she couldn't see any of it!

Anna never stopped screaming the entire time. It was exhilarating and terrifying! Elsa saw, however, that Anna was beaming with joy. She laughed again.

The curves didn't slow them down in the slightest (but they certainly made the slide a lot more fun). They were still going way too fast. Of course the curves don't slow us down! Elsa suddenly realized. The vertical distance we travel is exactly the same!

Elsa knew that unless she did something clever, the stop at the end was going to be abrupt. And somehow, her subconscious mind came up with the answer, and without seeing it, she knew it already existed.

Sure enough, at the end of the ride – which somehow felt like it took both a few seconds and a few hours – the chute morphed into a hollow ice sphere about 50 meters across. They slid easily into this sphere and continued sliding around its perimeter. Elsa closed the opening behind them immediately after coming through it.

The sisters simply rocketed around this sphere again and again, screaming and giggling, as their speed was slowly bled off. Elsa created some snow drifts for them to plow through, which slowed them some more, and they eventually spiraled down to the bottom of the sphere. They settled to a halt, whooping and laughing.

Elsa helped Anna to her feet.

"Did you enjoy that?" Elsa asked.

"Oh! My! God!" Anna screeched. "That was incredible!"

Elsa laughed, and they hugged.

They pulled apart, still grinning and glowing with adrenaline. Anna jumped up and down and yelled, "Whooooooooooooo!"

Elsa dispersed the hill, the slide, and the sphere, to reveal the steps leading to the ice palace just a hundred meters away. She had gotten them to their destination in about five minutes.

They turned to look down the mountain. Except for the packed snow, there was no sign that the ice hill had even been there. Everyone back in camp looked so tiny from this distance, but the sisters could discern that they were all standing and looking up at them.

"Oh, I wish I could see the looks on their faces right now!" Anna said.

Elsa briefly floated a snowflake hundreds of feet across into the sky as a sign to the others that they had arrived at the palace and were all right.

"How...how did you do all that?" Anna asked.

"It's just ice and snow, like always."

"No, I mean...I know you must have learned some engineering principles from Father, but to create a structure like that...and I saw you changing it as we were coming down! You were making it up as you went, but it was perfect!"

Elsa smiled and nodded, then looked up at the ice palace. "It was the same when I built this. I don't know how I designed it. And no, I never learned true engineering, or architecture, or the mathematics necessary to do such things, or anything of the sort. Not from Father, nor from anyone else. All I know is that if I want something made of ice, I just call it forth. Something inside me just makes it happen, and the dimensions are perfect.

"The most interesting thing of all is that I can feel the structure I've built as if it were an appendage. I can sense its design even when I can't see it." She looked at Anna. "That's how I knew you had arrived here that first time. I was upstairs resting, and I actually felt you knock, and even though I couldn't see you, I somehow knew it was you, so I opened the door."

Anna remembered that moment. She had knocked on the door of the ice palace, and the door had opened as if it were alive.

"You felt me?" she breathed, awed.

"It's kind of like feeling something brush against your skin, except it doesn't feel like that at all. I don't have the vocabulary to describe how it feels."

"Wow!" Anna whispered.

They turned and gazed upon the palace.

Elsa looked at the damaged bridge and sighed. "I guess this must have happened during the fight. My poor snow guardian." She repaired the bridge.

"You know, it occurs to me that this bridge is just resting on snow, which can shift, or just melt away," Anna said.

"No, the bridge and the palace are both anchored on rock. That was one of those things which just formed in my head when I made them."

"Wow!" Anna said again.

They ascended the steps. Anna looked into the chasm below, but could not see the bottom. She shuddered.

The door opened before they reached it, and they stepped inside. They gazed in wonder at the vast chamber, then Elsa closed her eyes.

"I can sense the entire palace just by standing here," she murmured. "I can sense every single flaw, even the tiniest chip in the walls created by the soldiers." She sent blue energy cascading upwards and outwards, flowing over everything, and opened her eyes. "But now, it is like new!"

"There will never be a day when I don't find that amazing!" Anna breathed. "That's simply incredible! Structures by thought!" Then she looked over Elsa's shoulder with alarm and gasped in fear.

Elsa spun around, ready for danger, but burst into a smile and ran forward. "My snow guardian!"

He ran to meet Elsa and bowed. Anna instantly felt calm. She knew Elsa would not let it harm her.

"You're still alive!" Elsa gushed.

Anna walked over to stand next to her. "And, apparently, he's the Queen of Arendelle."

"What?"

Anna nodded her head at the guardian, and Elsa looked closely.

"My tiara!"

"Something happen that night you want to tell me about?" Anna asked.

Elsa was silent for many moments. Finally, she quietly said, "When I built this palace, as an act of defiance against the chains which had held me my entire life, I threw away the tiara."

"It seems that Marshmallow picked it up."

"Marshmallow?"

Anna laughed. "It's what we call your snow guardian. Olaf actually came up with it."

"Ha! One of my snow creatures named another of my snow creatures. If they're all extensions of my personality, that's incredibly surreal."

"And if Marshmallow is an extension of you, the fact that he saved the tiara, and put it on, means that some part of you knew you were still the queen."

Elsa was quiet, her face full of emotion. "Or maybe he just picked it up because he – I – like shiny objects." She gave a weak smile.

Anna smiled warmly back at her. "Or maybe it was that," she whispered.

Elsa was actually shaking. "I didn't realize until this moment how upset I was that the tiara was lost, and now I am so very relieved that it isn't." She looked at Marshmallow. "Please return the tiara to its rightful owner."

Marshmallow took the tiara off and bent down to give it to her. Elsa was about to take it when Anna said, "Wait."

Elsa looked at her. "What?"

Anna turned to face her, suddenly solemn. "I don't know if this is going to make any sense to you, but we need to do this properly. Your first coronation ended badly, and we both have terrible memories of that night, for multiple reasons. You even threw the tiara away. So...I...I want to have another coronation."

Elsa looked at her in amazement. "You mean you want to invite everyone back and have another ball?"

"No!" Anna said, realizing that what she was envisioning and what Elsa thought she was envisioning were vastly different things. Communication is sometimes tricky, Anna thought. "No, what I mean is, I want to have another coronation now. Here. With just you and me." She touched her arm. "And this time, we'll do it right."

"We don't have the scepter and the orb."

"No, but we have each other."

Tears welled in Elsa's eyes. "There is no one I would rather have do this for me than you," she whispered.

"Give me the tiara," Anna said to Marshmallow. He looked at Elsa, who nodded, and he handed it over.

The sisters faced each other. There was no precedent for this kind of thing, so on the spot, Anna came up with something which sounded proper. In accordance with the traditions of the coronation ceremony, she spoke in Old West Norse.

"Accept this crown, this honor, this responsibility, my love, and the love and trust of your people, Elsa, Queen of Arendelle."

Elsa bowed her head, and Anna carefully placed the tiara back where it belonged.

Elsa lifted her head, and Anna curtsied low. "I greet and honor Your Majesty."

"Rise," Elsa said. "And I thank you with all of my heart."

They held each other for a long time. Marshmallow just stood there and grinned.

 

Anna and Elsa slowly walked through the entire palace, just being with each other, and admiring its beauty. Anna noticed that Elsa's bearing was more relaxed, and yet at the same time more regal, now that she once again wore the tiara.

On the second floor, Elsa created a balcony on the western side, and they watched the sun bathe the mountains in red and gold. They stood together, their soft faces lit by the golden light, gazing upon the incredible vista before them. Each felt and understood how beautiful and precious this moment was, more than any moment they had ever shared. Their souls were as one.

"I love you," Anna said softly. She hadn't planned to say it, it had just come out.

Elsa held her hand. "And I love you."

They leaned their heads on each other and stood shoulder to shoulder, all four hands clasped together, watching the most perfect sunset either had ever seen.

When the sun seemed to touch the first mountain peak, without saying a word, they fell into each other's arms and held each other for a long time. It was a hug so deep, and so close, that time and thought vanished.

 

The sun had almost disappeared when they finally made their way downstairs. They had half an hour to make it back to the camp site, for twilight would last that long, helped by light reflecting off the snow.

On the ground floor, they found Marshmallow patiently waiting.

"What do we do with him?" Anna asked.

"I don't think taking him with us is a good idea," Elsa said. "And I get the feeling he's perfectly comfortable right here." She scratched Marshmallow under the chin, then conspiratorially whispered to Anna, "I basically created him as a grunt. He doesn't have a lot going on upstairs."

Anna giggled.

"Besides, leaving someone to guard the palace isn't a bad idea," Elsa said.

"Guard it from whom?" Anna asked.

"I don't know. But palaces need guards, right?"

"I suppose."

Elsa turned to Marshmallow and said, "Guard the palace."

Marshmallow nodded.

They walked out the doors and back down the steps.

"I loved your ice slide," Anna said, smiling. "But may we please walk back?"

Elsa smiled also. "We may."