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Elsa had to admit it: the new arrangement hadn’t been the worst idea ever. She’d had her doubts almost immediately afterwards (How will people take it? There was no precedent for abdication, would the change in leadership be respected? Would Anna even want the throne? Is it fair for Elsa to burden her with the crown? What does being the Fifth Spirit even mean? What if she ends up messing everything up and fails at either role she was apparently born to be?) but if she were honest with herself (which she can be, now), is okay with finding a happy new normal. Well, as normal as can be.
Anna has taken to the throne like a fish to water, which Elsa had always known she would, and it feels so good to watch her sister’s big and capable heart on display for all to see and receive. All of Arendelle should be as lucky as she’d been to be the recipient of Anna’s focus, love, and care. It was high time to share.
Most importantly, it was time to free Anna.
She hadn’t fully realized until she’d sent Anna and Olaf away on that boat, that Anna was still trapped because of her. Anna, always so hyper-fixated on taking care of Elsa, was forgetting about herself. As long as Elsa was around, Anna’s attention would forever be divided.
So the simplest solution was removing herself from the situation.
She wasn’t planning on shutting herself away forever on a far away northern mountain this time, though she realizes with a cringe the initial situation sure sounded an awful lot like that. Elsa knows better now (Anna has taught her) than to lock herself away, and now has the strength to find her own place.
Elsa’s discovered she doesn’t miss the pressure at all. Instead she’s able to sit back and bask in the glow of watching Anna be Anna.
And serve as Royal Advisor to assist with certain matters of state (as well as help plan a particularly intricate treasure hunt throughout the forest for a certain husband-to-be, though that was in a much less official capacity). They’re still working out the kinks of the new arrangement, but it seems to be going pretty smoothly so far.
Sometimes it gets lonely in the mountains and the more she drank of pine and moss, rock and bark, she still thirsted for shaped stone, pastries, town squares, and bookshelves. Though she loves the Northuldra, at the familiar way Ryder nudges Honeymaren when they share a laugh, part of her aches as strongly as it did those lonely years behind a door.
If bridges had two sides, so, too, does Elsa, and she finds the solid footing of home on either shore. So when memories of the past ache and she finds herself retreating to the depths of Ahtohallan treading too near the edge of the sirens’ call, Elsa pulls herself away and heads back to Arendelle.
She’s able to ground herself for days or weeks at a time in the library, researching for various state affairs or compiling notes on the flora and fauna she’s gathered while up north. Getting lost in academic rigor, which aside from Anna, Elsa’s found she misses the most when she’s in the forest. But best is when her and Anna get to do it together, studying maps and ledgers, debriefing meetings, or discussing strategy (which definitely does not devolve into games of ice chess). Guiding and helping Anna always came the most naturally of all. It’s what big sisters do.
She’s able to take lazy strolls with Olaf through the marketplace or read in the castle courtyard while Kristoff plucks away at the lute.
And when the winds beckon her and restlessness returns, Elsa doesn’t have to worry about leaving, because they know she’ll return. She does not have to choose one or the other, and it makes all the difference. For someone who spent so much of her life behind doors, all of them are open to her now, in whichever way she wants them to be. And when she crosses back over the border into the Enchanted Forest marked by the plinths of the Spirits, it feels like a sacred homecoming.
A chirp comes from her shoulder as Bruni jumps onto his favorite perch. Gale ruffles her hair, carrying the scent of salt and faint sound of a wet whinnying from the distance.
Elsa smiles, heart soaring. “Let’s go home.”