Child of Mine

Disclaimer: Frozen and all related characters and settings are the property of Disney. This story and author are in no way affiliated with Disney, and no money is being made from this fan piece.

She hadn't climbed the North Mountain since Hans and the men brought her back to Arendelle.

Oh, she had all sorts of reasons for it, all sorts of work keeping her where she was. She had a relationship with Anna to rebuild, and anyone who thought that wasn't work was dead wrong. She had her magic to learn about and continue to build control over. She had reports to review and meetings with her people and her advisers, she had laws to approve, taxes to correct, expeditions to finance and soldiers and servants who needed to be paid. After all, she was the Queen. She had a responsibility.

It was that same sense of responsibility that was nagging at her. She had left some things undone on the North Mountain. The castle was destroyed—but that didn't matter, the castle wasn't alive…or was it? Had she thought Olaf was alive when she'd built him? Did the castle know, somewhere deep inside itself, that its mistress was gone?

She shook her head, dismissing the thought with finality. No, the last thing she needed now was to start worrying about the castle. It wasn't as though she could pick up and move the whole thing from the North Mountain to the courtyard of the castle she and Anna had grown up in.

Maybe one day, but not right now.

But for today…

"Will you look after the paperwork for me?" she asked Anna.

Her sister didn't quite hide the look of alarm; Elsa never asked Anna to look after things for her. Not because she didn't think Anna was capable—of course she did—but because she had an almost pathological insistence on taking care of what she was responsible for. "Um, yeah, sure, okay!" Anna stuttered. "But, uh, why? I mean, not that it's important, I'll totally do it no matter what! Oh, no, I didn't mean what you wanted to do wasn't important! I just wondered—"

Elsa managed a smile, slipping a word in edgewise before Anna could really get started. "I need to go up the North Mountain."

"What?! Elsa, why?"

That question was exactly what she had been afraid of. How could she explain this to Anna?

"…There's something I have to take care of. I'll be back by tomorrow. I promise."

And she turned away, forcing Anna to be content with that.

She took her horse, but otherwise she went alone. Her advisers would scream about that; no Queen ever left the castle without a guard. But then, they had never had a Queen like her before. Elsa wasn't afraid of wolves or bears or assassins, not anymore.

And she owed him that, at least that. She owed him herself, alone, when she came to find him again. She was their Queen, but she was his Creator, and she had treated him terribly.

She'd brought Olaf back to life to keep him in the castle with them but left Marshmallow behind for an entire year, when Marshmallow was the one who'd protected her, who'd fought for her, who would have died for her (if snowmen could die). How could she have forgotten him?

Was it because she was afraid of him?

The thought made her pause. Was she afraid? Not of him in himself; she knew Marshmallow would never harm her. But maybe…just maybe…it was who he was.

If Olaf was her love—for Anna, for family, for everything she'd been denied over the years—Marshmallow was her fear. She'd made him in a moment of terror, desperate to be alone and safe, desperate to lock herself away again in the castle she'd built so she could be free. He was the gloves, a closed blue-and-white door, an icy bolt hitting Anna in the head, a funeral she had never seen, the moment her heart had stopped beating when the cursed Prince had said because of you.

But he was still hers. He was a child born of fear, but he was her snow-child all the same, and she owed him better than this, leaving him alone on the mountain to protect an empty, broken castle.

Tying her horse to an ice post that she conjured with a gentle wave of her hand, she patted him. "It's all right," she soothed. "Don't be afraid."

Turning, she stared up at her castle. The broken balustrade of the stairs and the damaged balcony railing she could see from here reminded her of the horror and pain that had marked her last hours in this castle. Stepping towards the ice, she let out a breath and reminded herself that there had been beauty here too, and freedom, and everything she had ever wanted.

The lump of snow moved.

Elsa turned towards him, and her voice softened in spite of herself as she said, "Marshmallow?"

The great monster rose from the ground, slowly. The ice spikes were nowhere to be seen, and as she stared up at him, she noticed a golden glint on his head. Her crown.

Her heart broke. Had he been that desperate to hold on to some remnant of her, the creator who had abandoned him? "It's me, Marshmallow," she said. "I came back."

The big snow-creature took a slow, shambling step towards her. His enormous hand came carefully towards her, one finger-block resting against the side of her face as he gazed down at her with hollow eyes. "Back," he repeated. "You…came…back." He seemed to be struggling with this idea. The words were staccato, as though each one was its own sentence.

Elsa tried to smile, for him. "Yes, I did."

He fell as though in slow motion, crumbling down to his knees. Even then, he towered over her. "Back," he said, his icy breath blowing gently over her face. "Ma…ma."

It felt like a stab to the heart—Mama. Her name for her own mother. "Yes," she whispered, reaching up to rub fruitlessly at her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were brimming.

"Kept…for…you," he rumbled, and lifted off the crown, offering it back to her.

Her fingers closed around the icy metal and in spite of herself, tears rolled down her cheeks.

Love.

He had saved her crown for her. Knowing she might never come back, knowing she had abandoned him, he had still patiently saved her crown for her and waited for her to come home. It was a simple thing, but it told her of undying loyalty, incredible patience. So much love.

She had never seen the gloves, the closed door, the brutal dismissals of her sister as acts of love when she'd looked at them in herself. But she saw them in him.

Marshmallow was those things, but he was also a protected castle, a remembered queen, and a saved crown.

Marshmallow was her fear, but that fear had always, always gone hand-in-hand with love.

Managing a laugh through her tears, she patted Marshmallow's enormous hand. "Thank you," she said. "I appreciate it."

She turned to look at her castle again, then looked back at Marshmallow. "You know, we may want to use that castle sometimes in the summer. How about we clean up in there a little before we head home?"

"Home?" asked the snowman, tilting his head.

She smiled then, a real smile, bright and full and happy. "Yes," she said. "Home."