Anna

This was interesting - it was actually harder to come up with things for Anna than it was for Elsa. I got stuck on a lot of letters. Anyway, enjoy this second chapter.

The things that defined Anna were often more tangible. Because Anna's personality was turned outwards, not inwards like her sister. Anna needed people, objects, something she could touch, to hold her up. She needed strength to come from the outside.

A

Alone – Alone was not something she liked. She didn't understand Elsa's need to spend so much time alone, and quiet, she much preferred being with people. Perhaps it stemmed from a desperate fear that she would be alone again. She wanted 'together' so much more than 'alone'. She tried to avoid the feeling at all costs. "For the first time in forever, I won't be alone." Oh, the hope it carried with it. "We can face this thing together." "We can fix this hand in hand." "Nobody wants to be alone." She knew she didn't. She didn't want to be alone, ever.

B

Bare – Anna remembers, when she was very young, escaping from her mother's grasp at bath time and taking off through the halls completely nude. It just felt like the right thing to do. She realised that you could see people in what they left uncovered. She was older now, but often bare-shouldered, bare armed, low neck lines. People could see the freckles on her skin, and she liked that. She was showing off the real her, not hidden under layers of clothing. Clothes hid things, she discovered. Even something as simple as gloves could be hiding a secret. And that is what was so different, she realised, when she gaped at her sister in complete awe and stuttered, "Whoa, Elsa, you look . . . different . . ." Because suddenly there was Elsa's skin. Anna was seeing her for the first time.

C

Contact – Anna needed contact. She craved it. She reached out to anyone, anything, both physically and metaphorically. She needed hugs and hand holding and proximity. She sought it out anywhere she could (and that was a problem, wasn't it, because she crashed into Hans and he offered his hand and she took it and then she needed more than just that . . .) Sometimes, when she hugs her sister, and she does it a lot these days because she can and it's contact and she needs it, it feels as though Elsa needs it more than she does. And sometimes, she thinks, that should be impossible.

D

Daughter – She thought about her parents often. She was not a princess in the traditional sense; she climbed trees and scaled the castle roofs, and generally behaved in a manner not quite befitting a princess. She never really defined herself by her royalty. But she was definitely a daughter. And she knew her parents would be happy that she was embracing who she wanted to be, and not bending to the wills of others. The daughter of a King should not have so much freedom, but Anna was irrepressible. She was a daughter first, and a princess only second.

E

Elsa – Elsa was most important. She was the pinnacle of important, both to Arendelle and to Anna's life. Anna would die for her, and she has, and she would again. She looks up to Elsa, and sometimes she has to hold her up. Elsa wavers between strength and weakness, and Anna is the powerful pull of gravity that holds her sister together. Everyone thinks it is Elsa who is the most important thing to Arendelle, but they are wrong. Without Anna, there wouldn't be Elsa.

F

Fire – Kristoff wanted her to say 'feisty'. But just as Elsa was ice - cold and distant and hard to understand - Anna was fire: warm and open and drawing people in. People were mesmerized by fire; they stopped to look at it, they were transfixed by its beauty and uniqueness and movement. And fire was sometimes controlled, sometimes wild. Anna could take over a room, a conversation, like a wildfire out of control. Anna exuded warmth. She had enough warmth to thaw a frozen heart.

G

Green – It was spring, and summer, and hope and new life. She loved it, because it was part of Arendelle, which was part of her. She grew up around the colour, wore it in almost every outfit, loved the gardens with their expanses of grass. Green was bright and vibrant, a reflection of who she was. And when the sky was awake, it snaked tendrils of green, and a thousand other colours, across the sky. When winter thawed, all the green came out again. Green was like opening doors.

H

Hands – She watched Elsa's a lot. Elsa's hands stayed still, clasped in front of her or wrapped around her stomach. Anna's hands were always busy, gesturing, reaching. They spoke for her, in wild, extravagant movements. Anna shouted with her hands, grasped things, kept them always, always moving. She pointed and grabbed, waved them around, clutched things and fiddled. Hands meant life; it bothered her that Elsa's were often so still.

I

Innocent – Anna can be very naïve about things. She sees the good in everyone, which makes her quick to forgive, but vulnerable as well. She doesn't see danger, because she is still possessed by the childish belief that she is invincible, and nothing will happen to her. Most people think she's so innocent because of the way she lives: smiling and laughing and singing. She knows that she only looks innocent, and it's to hide the fact that she had to grow up too fast. She grips her childhood with vehemence, because if she takes her eyes off it for too long, it will vanish from her memory. Innocence is a choice.

J

Joan – Joan was Anna's tangible hope. And now she feels as though there was something mystical about the fact that this was the picture she chose to talk to the most, because Joan's story was magic just like Elsa. Anna looks at the portrait and she sees strength and power. Hang in there, Joan. Because there will always be a dawning of hope, there will always be a happy ending, a reward for the hardships they face. Hope and faith, these were Anna's constant companions. Joan was grounding, she was a point in Anna's life to return to often. A constant, in the loneliness of her childhood.

K

Kristoff – He was all the things Anna wanted; comfort, strength, quiet confidence and security. He was her beautiful stranger, tall and fair. They balanced each other; he tempered her wild abandonment and irrationality. She got him to open up and tolerate people. And maybe she liked him because she was drawn to people who hid away from the world. Mostly, though, she thinks it's because he was so unbelievably loyal, no matter what she threw at him. He didn't leave when she burnt his sled, and nearly set him on fire, and nearly concussed him with carrots, and made him jump off a cliff, and, and, and. If he could put up with all that, without even knowing her, she knew he was someone worth keeping in her life.

L

Love – She thought she didn't know anything about it. But there is only one way to describe a lifetime spent in faith of a sister who never opens the door. Anna forgave her sister every trespass; she defended her from everyone who spoke ill of her. She followed her up an icy mountain alone. She acted without thought for herself. Anna knows exactly what love is, and she is bursting with it. She just didn't recognise it as something special, because it was such an integral part of who she was.

M

Mountains – Mountains meant a lot of things. They were proud and sturdy. They could be hard to understand, difficult to traverse. Her father had been a mountain. Elsa could be a mountain, too. But mostly, mountains were something you could depend on. They were always there. Reliable. Stable. Difficult to overcome, but comforting in their complexity. Anna knew that she was a mountain. Mountains were always there. You could look to them and know, in the dark of night or the pit of loneliness, that they were there. Always. Sometimes even outside your door, asking if you wanted to build a snowman.

N

Now – Anna likes 'now'. Waiting is agony, so 'now' is better. There was spontaneity to 'now'; there was a lack of patience surrounding it. Anna was 'now'; she didn't dwell on past or future. The present, that was all she concerned herself with. She didn't think ahead, she rarely looked back. Sometimes she thinks that 'now' is so important, because it was all she had to hang onto as a child. Maybe . . . she'll open . . . the door . . . now?

O

Ocean – Anna's heart is an ocean. It was vast and unpredictable; it takes and gives and flows and ebbs and cannot be understood or tamed. When the waves crash and heave and the ships pitch and yaw, so does Anna's heart with the agonizing memory of what happens on rough seas. When the waters lay calm and serene, it is reflected in her eyes, that same beautiful serenity. You could drown in Anna's heart; Kristoff knows this is not a bad thing.

P

People – She loved people. The more there were, the happier she was. Open gates and open doors meant open hearts. People built her up, made her happy, confident. The most important things in her life were people, and she wanted to meet more of them. Each person she met could teach her something new about herself, and each one was a pleasure and ease to talk to. At the coronation, she clears her throat awkwardly, because she didn't know how to talk to Elsa. And that hurt, because Elsa should be the one person Anna talks to as easily as she talks to herself. But Elsa's not a people. She's a person. The distinction is important.

Q

Quick – She talks too fast. She makes decisions too fast. She blurts things out without thinking. She jumps off cliffs before counting to three. She impulsively punches traitorous princes. Self-control is not her forte. But if she didn't decide things quickly, she wouldn't have a sister anymore. If she hadn't made the irrational and very quick decision to launch in front of a falling sword, neither of the sisters would be here anymore. She got more out of life by being quick.

R

Remember – Anna can't remember things from when she was younger. There are gaps in her memory, things she can't place. Hazy memories filled with fun, but devoid of detail. She remembers falling, and the frazzled, dream-like state of those memories. Sometimes they seem like dreams, but bits are too vivid for dreams. She remembers leaping in the way of a sword, her legs heavy, her body cold and slowly numbing. She doesn't remember what happens next. But she does remember love.

S

Snowmen – Snowmen were happiness and childhood. They were emotions turned outwards, given a face. Olaf was happiness and love, things that Anna lapped up eagerly. Snowmen meant time with Elsa, memories of delight and fun. Making snowmen was a physicality of emotion. She could see the happiness, she could see the joy. And that lifted her heart, because Anna liked things that she could see and touch. Snowmen meant that the emotions, thoughts and feelings were unequivocally there.

T

Truth – She hated lying. She hated the way things could be hidden. Lying led to terrible things like rifts between sisters, and years of confusion and misunderstanding. But the truth could be hard, too. "What are you so afraid of?" That truth was a shock. So was the next one, "Oh Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you." But she still preferred the truth to the lies. Because the truth, in the end, made her see how much she loved her sister. Made her see who was really there for her. The truth, it turned out, was much simpler than she had thought. "You sacrificed yourself for me?" Why? It was an unspoken question. The answer, simple. "I love you."

U

Unique – Everyone always said that snowflakes were unique. Anna saw that in her sister; there was no one in the world quite like Elsa. Elsa seemed like something ethereal at times, but now that they are talking again Anna knows that Elsa feels the same way about Anna. Anna is the only person in the world to truly understand Elsa, the only person so willing to forgive, defend, love and protect. She's a mix of the all the good in the world, all the perfection of the soul that Elsa feels she does not have. They think each other to be so unique, but Elsa insists Anna is more so.

V

Voice – She is always talking. It had been to fill the void, at one time. She would natter away to dolls, to portraits, to a door that never opened. It was a coping mechanism, a way to cover up her social awkwardness honed through a lack of interaction. She couldn't help it, she had to talk. She thought too fast, and her words couldn't keep up, and then she stumbled over them and prattled endlessly about absolutely nothing. Now, she talked because there were people to listen to her. It was a good feeling. She told people that a lot.

W

Whoa – It's an involuntarily proclamation: when a sled falls into a ravine and burst into flames. When she is looking around a castle made of ice. When she sees her sister step out of the shadows in a dress of indescribable blue. She says it, not to make the world stop, but to slow down that little fragment of time, because it's so amazing that Anna wants to savour it, understand it, fully experience it. She lives life so fast, that sometimes she needs to express the desire to slow it down a fraction. Just those fractions where things are so different that she needs a moment to catch up to it. It's a good different.

X

She could pass this one by, as irrelevant. It wasn't really anything, and it could be glossed over and lost in the grand scheme of things. It didn't fit in with her life, so it could be discarded and her focus could fall to other things, more relevant things. Elsa couldn't ignore it, but Anna could. She wondered if that was good or bad.

Y

Yes – Anna is a 'yes' person. She reflexively says 'yes' to everything, even outrageous requests like 'will you marry me?'. But saying 'yes' isn't always bad. Her eagerness to accept things meant that she forgave Elsa everything, instantly. She saw the good in all people, the pleasure in life. And she waited, patiently, for the answer of 'yes' to the question she asked most often, do you wanna build a snowman? One 'yes' was worth thirteen years of 'no's.

Z

Zigzag – Anna has no problem with the zigzag in the book. She finds it fun and different. It stands out, it draws attention to itself. Everything else is staid and obvious. Apple. Bear. Not this. She thinks zigzags are whimsical and frivolous, and she absently traces them with finger tips on everything. Zigzags continue forever. They are infinity, with no start and no end. Just one long, up and down. Like life. Anna loves her life.