a/n: Happy New Year!

Oh My God, Magic

"This ice is just – so – damn – flawless!"

Anna wasn't sure whether she should be amused or slightly disturbed by the euphoria in Kristoff's voice as he lovingly caressed Elsa's newest creation standing out in the snowed-over courtyard, an ice sculpture of a griffin: haughty face with a strong beak, eyes coming to life with pride, strong limbs and glorious wings in perfect proportion. Even Anna had to admit the thing was a work of art, detailed down to the individual feather and the ridges of its ribbed belly.

But still, it was just creepy watching Kristoff press kisses all over it.

"Okay, Krissy, I think you've had enough alone time with the statue," Anna said, and from where he was squatted down to examine the thing's toes, Kristoff shot her a look of utter indignation.

"It is not just a statue," Kristoff cried, quite literally because tears of joy had been spilling down his face in a very unmanly display of affection. "It is sculpted ice. Can you even understand that? Can you understand the delicacy that goes into this sort of work–?"

"Elsa waved her hand! Once!" Anna exclaimed. Honestly, Elsa pressed these things out like a factory, especially when Anna had managed to convince her to drink hot chocolate and the dose of caffeine made her hands shake. Last time, they ended up with a zoo.

Kristoff shrugged it off and, even more awkwardly, started talking about her sister with rapture in his voice, like a zealous convert to the religion that was Ice Queen Elsa. Anna swore she could see stars in his eyes. "Your sister is a genius, you know that? I mean, God, this ice…"

"I'm starting to think you like ice a little too much," Anna said, starting to get legitimately annoyed because this somehow felt like Kristoff was indirectly perving on her sister too. Anna didn't feel jealous or anything. She was just protective of Elsa. Dear Lord, the way Kristoff looked at that ice could be described as undressing the thing with his eyes.

The crossness of her tone made Kristoff wake up enough to clear his throat in embarrassment, and he at last stood up and walked away from the griffin. "Y-Yeah, sorry about that. It's just so, so nice…"

With one last backwards look of longing at the sculpture, Kristoff left to complete his duties as Ice Master and Deliverer. Anna belatedly realized she still had no idea what those duties were, but she forgot about it when she made her way over to the griffin, took Kristoff's spot squatting down next to it, and eyed it carefully. Creepy as Kristoff had made it sound, the griffin really was perfect.

I wonder why Elsa has powers and I don't?

"I mean, we're family, and she was born with powers, so that must mean I could have them too, right?" Anna looked deep into the griffin's eyes, and she imagined it nodding along. "So you think I should give it a shot? Yeah, I think so too. All right, let's do this!"

Anna fist pumped and then scrambled to her feet, fixing her cloak and taking deep breaths to concentrate. Her mind flashed to her stash of poorly written fiction novels. How had those people done it? Something about willpower? Or like mental training exercises? Anna warmed up by running in place, narrowing her eyes and making little ooh-ing noises all the while.

"Hiyah!" Anna flung her arms forward with hands outstretched, half-expecting to see an impressive snowstorm or at least some sort of flurry.

Nothing yet. Must not be concentrated enough.

"Hiyah!" Anna closed her eyes, pulled her arms back, and then flung them out again. She cracked one eye open, anticipating a snowman or at least a snowball.

Nothing but an impressive trail of steam from her breath.

"Not fair," Anna grumbled, scowling and kicking at the immobile snow all around. Was she actually jealous of Elsa's powers? Well, no, not really; but it would have been cool to show off to Kristoff, and even better if she could let Elsa know she wasn't alone with her gift. No matter what Elsa said, Anna knew she still felt isolated. With that thought in mind, Anna stretched and prepared herself one more time. Taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling, Anna thrust her hand out.

"HIYAH!"

A wave of snow surged from the ground to strike the wall.

Anna's eyes bugged out.

"Oh my God, I didn't think that would actually work."

From her window, Elsa watched Anna start an impromptu dance of celebration and couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head all the while at her little sister's…well…eccentricities, Elsa decided, that was a good word. Much more polite than weirdness.

She had watched the whole thing, of course, from Kristoff's seriously creepy admiration of her griffin – which Elsa remembered making while doped up on fondue – to Anna's two failed attempts at magic. Really, running in place and screaming like a chicken with its head cut off?

On the third try, Elsa had taken pity and casually waved her hand, making the snow move as though directed by Anna.

"I need to tell Elsa!" Anna screamed, loud enough that Elsa could already hear her from about three stories up with the windows closed. Elsa watched as Anna no doubt realized her volume could be a little much and looked around guiltily.

And then maybe she thought she had best experiment and make sure or something, because Anna started flailing her hands all over the place, feet pivoting in what Elsa supposed was a very, very bad impersonation of herself.

"May as well," Elsa murmured, and she followed each one of Anna's movements, shifting the snow, building ice sculptures, forming snowmen. Each time, her little fond smile grew wider when she saw Anna jumping and laughing and clapping her hands like a kid at the discovery of her magic. Before Elsa knew it, she had a full-blown grin on her face.

Finally, just as Elsa started to think she had made a terrible mistake and Anna would never stop, Anna decided to call it quits and stood there breathing heavily. A veritable miniature ice-kingdom surrounded her, all sorts of mythical creatures and snowmen of every variety. Just as Elsa breathed a sigh of relief, she saw Anna suddenly dash to the great doors, ducking out of her vision when she passed under the stone arches. Elsa raised a brow.

Well, it was time to get back to work. Sitting down at her desk, Elsa propped up her elbows and started signing paperwork as fast as humanly possible, ink flying off the page whenever she signed with especial flourish. Her signature looked different every time but no one cared anyway, and especially not Elsa. But with each consecutive signing, her hand slowed. Slowly her eyes drooped and the text blurred, each sheet of white paper starting to look exactly the same…melding into a big, fluffy pillow…

Elsa snapped back to attention when the doors were flung open.

"Elsa! Sis! I have an announcement!" Anna yelled, running up so fast the papers flew up in a flurry of dangerous edges. Elsa neatly dodged a potential papercut. "Are you ready? Okay? Just watch!"

An announcement, Elsa wanted to say, usually meant words, and what Anna meant was a demonstration; but when Anna excitedly waved her hand, Elsa immediately shifted into big-sister mode. Hand twitching behind her back, Elsa summoned a small snowball into Anna's hand.

Anna squealed in delight and all but shoved the snowball into Elsa's face. "Loooooook! I have magic too! Isn't that awesome?"

"Awesome," Elsa said, politely shifting Anna's hand away. Cold never bothered her, but having snow shoved up her nose wasn't really her idea of a good time.

"Oh my God," Anna said, flopping down into a seat with a loopy grin on her face. "I'm so sorry, I'm just out of my mind right now. Must be all that magic tiring me out. But wow, just imagine, you and me can totally do it now."

"…What?"

Anna turned red. "I – I meant – we can make a little magic together? Wait, what? No, no, not like that! What I meant was, uh, a magic ice carpet ride? Oh, God. I – I'll just stop talking now."

Elsa blinked, impassive face not even hinting at the raging mental battle in her head to repress wild peals of laughter. "Definitely."

She was so busy trying not to laugh that she didn't notice her slipup until Anna made a tiny noise of displeasure in the back of her throat. Elsa looked over to see her sister glaring down at her hand and frowning, eyebrows furrowed together in consternation.

"Weird, nothing happened that time." Anna tried again, closing and reopening her hand, and this time Elsa made an imperceptible twitch of her finger. A diamond-shaped shard of ice grew in Anna's palm.

"See, it worked that time," Elsa said.

"Does that happen?" Anna asked. "Like, does it sometimes turn off?"

"Oh. Umm, yes," Elsa said, thinking fast. "You see, sometimes the magic just…has an attitude…and you need to, uh, perform a musical number for it to work."

Anna nodded sagely. "Got it. All right, we can make some magic together – do magic together – later, I gotta find Kristoff and shove this in his face!"

Elsa watched Anna leave in a rush, and she turned back to her paperwork. After only two seconds, she glanced back up, at the clock, and then at the door. "Oh, to hell with it," Elsa said, brushing the stacks of paper aside and turning to look out the window again.

This was just too good to pass up.

"Watch and learn," Anna said, dragging Kristoff out to the courtyard.

"What exactly am I supposed to learn?" Kristoff asked.

Anna looked around the now emptied courtyard in confusion, wondering where all her work had gone, but then she supposed it wasn't a big deal. She would just have to show Kristoff the magic in action. Wouldn't that be more impressive anyway?

"I, Princess Anna of Arendelle," Anna said, puffing up and putting on her best voice of royal importance, "Queen Elsa's little sister, am going to show you my magic."

Kristoff didn't look impressed. "Did you say your...magic?"

"Throw away your skepticism and behold," Anna said. She cleared her throat and stretched out her shoulders, wiggled her fingers a few times like those magic shows with the guy in a top hat and a rabbit, and finally put her arms out. "All right, I'm seriously going to do it."

"I'm watching," Kristoff said.

Anna summoned up all her strength. "HIYAH!"

Both Anna and Kristoff stared at the unmoving snow. In the distance, an acorn dropped onto the snow with a thunderous thud and a squirrel sprinted by to snatch it up.

"…Wow, your ice sculpture is hyper-realistic. Look at that fur…and skeletal system…and even a skull, Olaf is going to be so jealous," Kristoff deadpanned.

"What? I swear it worked before." Anna straightened her back and glowered at her hand. Why wouldn't it work? A light bulb went off in her head as she remembered Elsa's advice, and her frown turned upwards. What was that one she heard Elsa singing in her sleep? Anna took in a deep breath.

"What is it this time–?"

"LET IT GO, LET IT GOOOOOO! LET THE STORM RAGE OOOOOONNN! OH, AND, UH, THE COLD NEVER BOTHERED ME ANYWAY!"

Anna belted out the little of the lyrics she could remember, using her diaphragm for maximum volume and flapping her arms powerfully in all directions. Nothing happened. She somehow managed to smack Kristoff in the face and herself tripped face first into the snow.

She spat out a mouthful and groaned. "It really does bother me, I'm pretty sure I got brain freeze. Why won't it work? Hey, any ideas...Kris…toff…?"

Well, Kristoff was unconscious, but Anna had gone quiet because while looking up she had a perfect view of the third-story work office. Elsa was up there laughing like Anna had never seen her laugh before, actually tearing up and gasping for air, entire person bent inwards. Their eyes met and Elsa only laughed harder, wiggling her fingers and grinning with mischief in her eyes.

Let's make a little magic, Elsa mouthed.

The moment she understood what had really just happened, Anna covered her face.

Oh…God…