WORRY DOLL



As a child Elsa had always been anxious and shy. Almost painfully so. Meeting new people had been what she dreaded most, alongside heights. At three years of age her mother had found just the thing. A tradition that had been suggested by one of her maids.

A worry doll. A little doll that the child could tell all of her fears and secrets. A confidant for a child that had none her age. So a doll was found and chosen by the Queen. The doll was dressed finely in green and had the brightest red hair done up in pigtails. Her button eyes were teal and she even had freckles. The gift came in winter, and Elsa fell in love with her doll right away.

After a little deliberation between Elsa and her mother the Queen, the doll was christened Anna. From then on, where so ever Elsa went, so did Anna.

Every little worry and woe was shared with the cherished doll. Even the meeting of strangers like the ambassadors or her new teachers they weathered together. Formal dinners had the doll hidden under her chair as Elsa bravely finished her veggies like a good girl. They even spent many a sleepover in tidy pillow forts made with what had to be all the pillows in the castle.

When Elsa turned eight, she had the joy of informing Anna that there was to be a new family member. As the royals of Arendelle had been blessed with the announcement of her mother’s pregnancy by the royal physician. In eight months’ time, Elsa would have a brother or, even better, a sister to play with. But of course she would never do away with Anna. Rather they would all play together.

It was not to be.

Two months before the birth there was an accident. There was pain and her mother miscarried. A long painful week of being ignored that ended in her father sadly telling her that God had taken her unborn sibling with him to heaven. Despite what all the stories said, there was no amount of wishing and magic that would undo it.

There was no such thing as magic or miracles. Life went on and together with her parents she grieved the little dear’s passing. So Elsa resolved by age nine to put away her childish things. Which, sadly, included a little loyal doll with teal button eyes.

This was only proven further when in ten years she lost her parents. In her grief she sealed herself away in the castle. Throwing all of her attention and thought into learning to be a good queen. To give her people everything they needed and to be as good a ruler as her parents before her. In her grief she ignored her own worries, her own fears.

And so three years passed, and it was the night before the coronation. On that night she missed her parents more than ever. Wishing they were there; for advice, for comfort. Hundreds of people were coming to the event, and all of them would be watching her, the main event. Worse, most of them would be strangers and the representatives of other nations. What if she made some mistake?

Her fear held her so that she hid as night came on. She needed the solitude to pull herself back together, to settle her nerves. With all of the servants hard at work throughout the castle she eventually sought out that solitude in the depths of the attic. There she found herself hidden and safe from curious prying eyes.

It was dim and there was enough dust to choke on, but for all that it was secluded. There was little chance of a servant coming up here for any reason and so she tolerated it. In the dark she found the only glass window, bright with moonlight, and sat beneath it. By that light, scant as it was, she managed to see something she was shocked to find. A portrait of her dear mother and father.

It had come to pass that she had stopped looking into the various portraits downstairs. Years of grief had her memorize where each and every single one was. It hurt to look upon them. It hurt to see smiles she would never see in person again. Faces done in paint did nothing to capture their voices, their warm hugs and the love they had for their daughter.

Downstairs she was soon to be the crowned Queen of Arendelle. But here in the dark, with an already heavy heart she could do naught but allow herself to sit and cry like she had lost them all over again.

For some reason she felt the need to speak. In that place she leaned against a box and gave into her sorrow. Letting all of her worries and even her hopes out. The fears that shook her down to her very core. And she prayed, she prayed that her words would find their way to heaven with each fear and hope, with the deepest secrets she had never told them in life. Everything she hadn’t said and the words she wished she had said more often.

Unknown to the soon-to-be Queen, the box she leaned against as she spilled her soul held a very special doll. Still loyal and listening to each and every word.