Frozen Roses

A Story by Here Beyond

My own origin story for the snow queen. It's based off of the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen as well as the movie Frozen.

Frozen Roses

First Story: An Ill-meant Blessing

Long ago, the line of Arynn ruled the entire world for many generations. The most well-known of these kings was the last king, Halvard. He was a war hero and kept every kingdom that he could travel to safe. He killed many giants and goblins in his time and frequently brought their heads home to be preserved as a warning to all other foes of his people.

As mighty a hero as he was, he was not immune to the power of love. He married, and soon his queen was with child.

Two snow sprites had journeyed to the castle to cause some mischief in the tows, and, upon hearing the news of Queen Sanna’s pregnancy and curious to see if they could trick King Halvard, they decided to pay a visit to the castle.

One sprite transformed to the likeness of an old priest, the other became the first’s raven. The pair gained audience by claiming to want to bless the queen. The guard, not suspecting for a moment that a holy man could be a wicked creature, led them directly to the couple. When the sprites proposed the blessing to the king and queen, Halvard approved and urged Sanna to allow it. Sanna was more resistant to sprite magic than most humans, and she was reluctant, feeling that something was not quite right. Even so, she agreed.

The “raven” cawed with laughter as the false priest pulled a flask of water made from their own magic snow out of his cloak. As they traced patterns on Queen Sanna’s belly, the woman shivered with cold. “Halvard, it is dreadfully cold,” she complained. “Do add some wood to the fire.”

The king thought nothing of it at first, since the autumn could get quite nippy and an old stone building does not keep out the cold well, but as the queen complained again and again of the cold, even as what seemed like the wood from a small forest was added to the fire, he began to suspect.

Sanna was becoming afraid. She trembled violently, feeling as though she was submerged in the icy northern sea. ‘I feel as though I will die,’ she thought. ‘Why is this?’ She tried to breathe steady and calm her nerves. It was then that the words of the sprite priest reached her ears. They were not in any language that she knew, and certainly not that of the priests of her land.

“Halvard,” she shrieked in fear, realizing what they were. “They are sprites!”

The king was flooded with rage and fear and as his guard drew his sword, he seized a chair and attempted to slam it on the sprite’s heads.

The sprites merely laughed and turned into snow, but a draft caught them and blew them into the fireplace. There was a loud creaking scream that sounded like the cracking of ice and the vapor that once was the sprites was borne up by the heat into the night. They were never seen again.

Second Story: The Daughter of Snowflakes

Unfortunately, their curse on queen Sanna and her unborn baby did not end with the sprite’s lives and a month later, she gave birth to a strange child. Her skin was very pale and the hairs on her head were white as the snow, nothing like her dark parents. The most unusual feature of all was that she was cold to the touch, but did not die. In fact, the cold seemed to have no effect on her at all. The midwife screamed that the babe was a demon in disguise and that it should be killed immediately, but King Halvard would not hear of it. He threw the midwife out onto the street and threatened her with death if she ever dared to approach the castle. They named her Eira.

Despite her strangeness, she seemed in fairly sound mind. Never the less, for fear for both Eira’s and the kingdom’s safety, she was kept locked away. When her sister, Annika, was born, she became very attached to her. It was around this time that Eira became even stranger. One fine summer day, the little princess lost her favorite doll down at the bottom of a pool in the castle courtyard. She set to crying, as small children are wont to do, and when her mother came running, she found the pond frozen over and Eira waist deep in a pile of snow, the tears frozen on her tiny cheeks. Sanna brought her inside and ordered that the doll be retrieved the moment that the pond melted or a replacement be found.

Children are good listeners, never doubt that fact, or you may come to regret it. Eira was no different, in fact, she may have been even more observant. From the doll incident forward, she could hear the servants whisper amongst themselves about her, calling her a changeling and a witch child. The princess was not sure if she could believe the stories, so she ran to her mother and asked. Many of the staff were dismissed and silenced with gold afterward.

Eira, perceptive for a girl of six, realized that what she had said caused the servants to lose their jobs, so she decided to stop speaking to all but Annika for fear of causing trouble.

The Third Story: The Old Man that Knew Magic

The sisters would play for long hours in the courtyard where Eira would demonstrate the power of winter and Annika would insist on the beauty of the flowers.

“Then how about this?” the older sister suggested, taking a rose from Annika’s hand and giving it a coating of ice. “Perhaps now it will be twice as beautiful!”

“Yes,” cried the little girl. “Look how it glitters!”

The princesses’ lives continue in bliss for a few years until an old man came to the gates of the palace, where the girls happened to be playing. Eira was making designs with ice on the ground and gates while Annika busied herself making snow angels. The old man stopped to watch them play, thinking back to his own childhood. Just then, Eira misjudged a line and the ice extended over to Annika and froze her in place. The dark-haired girl shrieked when she realized that she was stuck, as did Eira when she realized what had happened.

The old man did not shout, but simply melted the ice that held Annika fast with conjured fire, for he knew magic, and limped over to the gate, where Eira stood still. “You are powerful,” the old man said quietly. “But you are dangerous. Take care.” And with his words, he put in Eira’s mind the image of her family frozen to death by her power and herself knee deep in snow and made entirely of ice.

The princess was frightened so much that she ran inside, leaving Annika to stagger to her feet and rush in behind her. Eira closed the door to her room, not knowing what to do, and fell into despair. When her mother came to bring her to dinner, they found her curled up on the floor in a bank of her own magic snow with a garden of crude ice replica flowers.

The Fourth Story: The End of the Line of Arryn Weeks passed, then months, and then years. In that time, Eira grew into a stunningly beautiful youth. She was given an enchanted choker to help control her powers, and slowly, with few stressors and magic to counter act her own, she began to behave more stably. However, her fear of injuring others and of them injuring her had become deeply rooted in her mind and she did all she could to reduce her contact with them. Still, as the eldest child and heir to the throne, she was expected to marry and continue the bloodline. Suitors were brought to the palace and Eira was encouraged to see them, but she came up with every excuse under the sun to dodge them. It was not long before they all gave up on her. There was one exception to this: Baldor Engelstad, the son of a lord who had become infatuated with the princess. He pursued her affections tirelessly, vowing to court her until she came to love him as much as he loved her. The boy's intentions were pure, but one night, when he approached Eira at a feast, she lost control of her powers. The knowledge that she would hurt Baldor in the end caused her worst nightmare. Snow and ice exploded from her so violently that her choker was shred. All of the people turned to look and some tried to run, but none escaped with their lives. Everyone was frozen solid except for Eira. Eira was horrified by what she had done and would have stood staring at her frozen family if she had not heard the shouts of guards growing nearer. Without another thought, the new queen fled. She ran for days and days, only resting when she was going to collapse from exhaustion, until she ran beyond the reaches of the four kingdoms themselves. It was then that she stopped and finally let loose her powers. Those days were bitter-sweet, for her sculptures were no longer beautiful to mortal eyes, but jagged and perverted. Her masterpiece, and indeed the one that we may find the most beautiful, was a sleigh and two living horses crafed from Eira's enchanted ice. With her new servants, she continued her journey north. The Fifth Story: The Snow Queen News of the royal family's death spread like wildfire, so that even the birds and beasts knew what had happened, although it was said that Eira had murdered them on purpose. Eira shunned every creature and even killed those that harrassed her. Slowly but surely, the guilt and grief and bitterness were turning her heart to ice. As the queen went further and further north, to the lands of perpetual winter, she was hated less. In fact, many of the creatures that she met revered her as the Snow Queen and called her the most powerful of all creatures with ice powers. Queen Eira ignored them all. One day, an ice sprite heard of Eira's approach and decided to challenge her to a duel. "Surely," he said to himself, "No one can be as powerful as I. I shall eliminate this false queen, for I am the true monarch of Winter!" He set out the very moment the decision was made and soon intercepted Eira. "Move," commanded the queen in a hard voice. "Not until I show you that I am king," replied the sprite and he attacked her wih a blast of magic. Eira parried the advance with magic of her own. The battle would rage on for hours, but finally, the sprite fell dead and Eira continued her journey, trampling the body with her horses' hooves. When she reached the frozen top of the world, Eira had long since become ice, yet she still lived. She build a palace for herself and surrounded it with living snowflakes, each taking on he shape of an animal. Not a single living thing dared to approach the castle, fearing the queen's wrath and Eira lived there almost peacefully. Still, to remind herself of her past crimes, she fashioned a rose out of ice and let it sit next to her sparkling throne. There they woild live forever, the snow queen and her grief.