A Winter Wedding Part 1

April 21st was proving to be big day for the humans at our house. That day was something called a "prom" in which humans She's age would basically attend a modern version of a ball, and it was also the week where two other humans were on a field trip away from home overnight. The last human remaining didn't bother us much, being out at work for most of the day, so we all assumed that it would be a big day for us dolls, too. Little did I know how right I was.

***

The night before the 21st I'd had a dream not unlike others I've had before, dreams so realistic they could have been when I was awake. I was running through a snowstorm at the top of a mountain, calling out for somebody I knew very well.

"Steve?" I asked, but my voice was muffled and echo-y in the roaring winds.
Ahead of me, I thought I could see somebody. Steve, probably. I tried yelling again.
"Steve!" I reached out my arms, but then my skirts fell over my feet and I fell onto my knees into the snow. It was incredibly deep, and when I brought up my hands and looked down at the prints I'd left, there was no sign of rock or dirt or grass underneath, only more and more snow.
I pushed myself up again ungracefully, shaking off the snow and starting to run. "Steve, wait!"
He didn't pause, and he didn't even look back behind his shoulder or anything. So maybe this dream person wasn't Steve? I felt a wave of doubt, a shudder brought on not by the cold but by fear.
"Steve, please say something!" I began to gallop, as I did, the humanlike shadow before me started to fade into the snowflakes. I ran faster, only to fall again. I could feel myself sinking into the snow like it was quicksand.
"Steve!" I gasped, still reaching for him. The snow was up to my neck now and I was still sinking. I was about to close my eyes before I thought I saw the shadow return, walking slowly back to save me. I wasn't giving up yet.
My hand raises from the snowbank- and grabs onto something.
Startled, I open my eyes and see not Steve, but Anna, sitting calmly on the dresser where I had been asleep. I had grabbed Anna's arm instead of Steve's leg.

"Excellent, you're awake!"
"I am..." I agreed, but it came out as more of a question. I shook myself into reality. I'm sure the dream meant nothing. "Hey, what's that in your hair?"
"Huh, what? What thing?" Anna quickly shook a white flower petal from her left braid. "I was just outside."
"And no cape?"
"No, no, not at all! It's really quite nice. And now that you mention it, I don't think you're dressed properly for the weather."
I gave Anna a look like, "where is this going?" but she didn't give me anything to go off of.
"Okay...?"
"You have a Frozen Fever dress, don't you? From that one Disney short? You should wear that instead."
"How did you know I had one of those?" I knew that MyLittleMegara had created the custom dress for me long before Anna arrived.
"Olaf told me," Anna shrugged. "Now, where is it? I want to see it on you today."
I wasn't sure what Anna was up to, but by her frantic nature I knew it had to be something. She was acting more like Nessa than her usual controlled self. But per Anna's request, I put the dress on. It was the first time in forever since I'd worn it, and since dolls remain the same size their whole lives, of course it hadn't changed a bit, but it felt different. The sheer mesh sleeves were glittering and delicate, the extra-long cape elegant, and the skirt and bodice breathable. I felt like a goddess of the springtime... which is unusual considering that's the opposite of how I typically am.
Whenever I stepped out of the "changing room" behind She's bed, Anna squealed. "You look excellent, Elsa! But it's missing something."
"Okay, like what?"
"Do you have any flowers back there?" She asked.

"Yeah." They weren't real flowers, but re-purposed earrings that She had given me to wear in place of the snowflakes. With the flowers woven through my braid, two pink and one green, Anna proclaimed me finished.
So I was ready for the day, but what kind of day was it going to be if I was wearing this?
"You should come downstairs. Everybody else has made brunch, and we're all talking about She's promenade-thing. It's really fun. Elphie's got some photos pulled up of She in her dress, and I'm sure Loki would be lovestruck. It's really fun. Wait- didn't I say that already?" Anna held onto my arm and starting leading me from the Room She Lives In and to the stairs.
"Anna, are you alright? You seem... spastic."
Anna paused, her teal eyes wide. "Am I?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"It's probably the coffee."
"We have coffee?"
"Yeah! Can't you smell it?"
So her weird mood was only because of caffeine, but I wasn't sure if my suspicion would care. Anna began to ramble again, telling me we had all sorts of things ready for brunch, because after all, you should celebrate a prom, right? Was a prom something you celebrate? Well, it must be if She had to get dressed up so nice. And we have these buttermilk rolls, and local honey, and sliced strawberries with chocolate sauce. And the coffee. Did I mention that already?
Well, Anna wasn't wrong. There was a wonderful brunch set up on the kitchen table for whatever reason, but everything looked so wonderful that I knew I shouldn't question why.
Everybody was there (except Loki and the Avengers, of course), while some of them were  noses-deep in the food, most of them were scrolling through prom pictures that had She in them. Everything was lovely, but as I continued to look around the table, I realized someone was missing.
"Where's Steve?"
The whole table went silent like something had happened to him. I felt my nerves rising with each moment that returned from my dream.

Dorothy wiped her hands on her apron. "Steve? Oh, he had brunch earlier."
"But I'm up early-" I started, then noticed Anna's glare. "Earlier than usual! Why isn't he around?"
Bell shrugged, her wings fluttering as she brought some leftovers to pack up again so the humans wouldn't be suspicious later. "He already had brunch."
"That didn't answer my question. Where's Steve?" It might have been my imagination, but it looked like everyone at the table was exchanging glances.
"He had some things to do. That's all."
"Like what things?"
Nessarose changed the subject, I suspected on purpose. "Hey, Elsa! Why don't you have a look at these pictures? Elphie's got some of She's dress pics on the iPod here. Isn't it a dream?"
I didn't appreciate the distraction, but eventually I did get lost in the images like everyone else had. She's dress was purple, per her favorite color, and her hair had been done up in a halo of braids and a curled bun. There was a corsage, but no certain date, with bittersweet yellow roses that reminded me of Cogsworth. Most of the pictures were of her and someone else in fluffy pink that I'd recognized as MyLittleMegara.
After a while, Elphaba began to cough weirdly into her good hand. "Hechtwelve! Hech. Itstimehechack!"
"Are you okay...?" I begin, my sentence cut off when Nessa snatched the iPod from my hands and replaced it with the end of an orange ribbon.
"Okay, now what's this about?"
Nessa smiled. "I don't know. But if you know anything about Frozen Fever, which I'm guessing you do by your dress... you should follow it."
This morning was getting weirder by the second. I found myself mindlessly hopping down from the table and giving the ribbon a tug, gathering it up in my arms as it kept getting longer and longer, but it stopped short when it passed under the glass back door.
From the other side, I could only see more and more ribbon. I exhaled and watched as everyone began to gather behind me like I was some sort of ringleader. Yep. Weirder by the second.

The outdoors were warm, yet not sunny, with a near-dreamlike layering of white clouds across the sky that looked more like winter than spring. The orange ribbon was taking me along the side of the house, which only had a woodpile, a bleeding heart flower bush, and the humans' only pear tree.
The pear tree was secretly one of my favorite places to visit. It was were I had taken the first photographs when starting picture headers for the blog back in April 2016. The tree had been recently split by lightning, and the gap it left made the perfect spot for Dorothy and Bell to hang out. Not only that, but the pear tree would blossom tiny white flowers, and for about a week, no more and no less, the breeze would blow and its petals would be everywhere until you could hardly see your own hand if you held it out in front of you. It was like springtime snow.

I had been watching the ribbon slide around on the ground the whole time, just to see where it would go, but something inside of me made me want to look up. I did, expecting nothing, but instead I saw Steve standing patiently and calmly under the bleeding heart bush. My breath caught in my throat. It felt great to see him in real life.
"Hey," I said, holding up the ribbon. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"I do," he replied quietly, then took one of his hands out from behind his back, dropping the other end of the orange ribbon. "In fact, I set all of this up."
I turned behind me, and there was a chorus of nods from Anna, Nessa, Elphie, Olaf, Idina, Dorothy, Bell, Benny, Napoleon, Westley, everybody. What's 'all of that'?"
He was suddenly bashful. "Elsa... there's been something I've been meaning to tell you for a long time. I would say since February, but really I think it's been longer than that."
What was I to say to that, if anything at all? "Okay?" I giggled awkwardly, painfully aware of how everyone was holding their breaths behind me.
"I remember very well the first day we met. It was my finding day, which you ought to remember anyways, but it was also the day you saved me from that box. We talked, and laughed, and felt awkward and shy together, and when I told you I had to go and find my 'whenever', I'll be honest now and admit that I hadn't been looking for anything at all. I was trying to get away from you so I wouldn't ask too soon what I want to ask you now. I thought of you everyday I was in that attic. And I still do think of you everyday, and what I haven't done, and what you don't know. Until now."

He revealed his second fist, then opened it slightly until a wire bracelet with shiny dark red and blue beads fell just enough for me to see them.
"Queen Elsa of Arendelle... you are my whenever. Will you please marry me?"
I couldn't talk. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. But I could see the love in Steve's eyes and the bracelet in his hand, and all the Disney movies I've ever seen let me know what this meant instinctively.
"Oh, Steve! Yes!" I didn't think I'd really said anything aloud until Steve ran forward and then ran the bracelet up my arm on bended knee.
When he stood again, I saw the bracelet on his own arm, and they matched, as most engagement bracelets do, but they were both quite... large.
Steve noticed my noticing and blushed the color of the flowers. "I know they're not great or anything, I made them myself, and there was no way I could measure your wrist without you thinking of anything before you were supposed to, and-"
I quieted Steve with a kiss. "They're perfect."
He grinned like an idiot and blushed harder. "That's one way to get someone to shut up."
I batted my eyelashes, shooing away joyful doll-tears. "Do you know how to dance?"
He fidgeted. "No. But I've always been interested in learning."
"We should dance. Here, I can teach you. It's not so difficult," I guided his hand around my waist and the other around my hand in the air. "I'll lead."
"What, because I'm short?" He teased.
"No! I just know how to, that's all." I claimed, even though our height differences must be obvious to others, but I've never really thought about it myself when I was with him.
"We'll go slow. Now, this is something called a box step. When I go forward, you go back so that we don't run into each-other. Okay?"
Steve snorted under his breath. "Okay."

And it was just like that, clunky yet natural. Steve was a fast learner, so much so that I was nearly convinced he'd been practicing.
"They need some music," I heard Anna say through an emotional voice. "Elphaba, get them some music."
"What do you think they would like?" Elphie asked, already scrolling through the selection on She's old iPod. "Ooh, I got it. Metal."
"No, no, no. Pick something nice!" Nessa hissed.
"I got it," Elphie insisted. "Relax. She doesn't even own any metal music."
Despite Nessa's attitude, I trusted Elphaba to pick something suitable, and she did. It was love song, obviously, with an excellent buildup and a passionate voice. The music helped, and for once our movements felt entirely smooth, Steve instinctively knowing were to avoid my extra-long cape and the two of us sweeping along the grass, like, well... like a Disney movie.
The song was from The Greatest Showman, a magical movie about love and a circus that She had recently brought home. Our song, "Never Enough" was about an opera singer accidentally falling in love with the head showman and professing and nothing will ever satisfy her if she doesn't share it with him.
And in that moment, I suddenly felt surreal. I'd been going on autopilot for a while, overwhelmed by the bracelet and all, but now I couldn't believe this was happening... I was finally getting married to Steve! How long had I waited, despising myself for my own jealousy towards Olaf and Idina, when I only had to wait a little longer for our perfect time?
I felt extremely comfortable and incredibly close. It was bliss. Steve broke off his grasp to my hand and held it around me. I rested my now-free hand on his shoulder, and now we were dancing less and hugging more. That didn't matter.
Our patience had paid off.
(Later on, we got some traditional engagement pictures inside the house. The sign-out pic was supposed to be the blog header for April.)

Happily engaged,

Queen Elsa