Work Text:
Elsa waited. Long after the castle settled, and the last fires had dimmed in all of the castle’s fireplaces. Long after the last servants had finished their nightly chores, and long after Anna had surely cried herself to sleep. Still, Elsa slowly opened her door and hid the flame of her lantern when she looked out. She took a step out, and winced when her shoe made a cracking sound. She looked down and saw the heel of her black boot stabbing into a half of an inch of ice.
Wordlessly, Elsa grabbed her shoes, removed them, and placed them back into her room. Barefoot, she padded through the castle leaving shining ice puddles as she went. Outside, she could hear thunder clashing in the sky and rain pouring heavily against the castle. The grandfather clock in the hallway struck loudly, and she adjusted the dark cloak against her shoulders and left a patch of fresh frost against its soft texture.
Down the stairs and through the door, Elsa stole away from the castle in silence and looked out over the fjord. Lightning reflected across it, and thunder moaned angrily. A chill wind blew rain and small waves across the fjord. Elsa pulled the hood from her cloak onto her head and set out into the rain with her lantern in front of her.
She knew the official route well. She had watched Anna walk it in part this morning, and she had walked it once a year with her parents to visit her grandfather, King Runeard’s grave, until she was eight years old. Kai and Gerda had both knocked at her door this morning and suggested she come to her parents’ funeral. Her parents’ council members and her new advisors had asked her, as the new and young queen, to attend her parents’ funeral. Finally, Anna, her little sister, had come to her door and begged her to come to the funeral. But this was the only way it could be.
Yet Elsa would not take the official route, not for fear of running into a villager. She chose to go by the crest of rocks that connected the castle to the mainland. Her destination was not far from their landing anyway. Elsa trudged onward, and reached the mound where her parents were symbolically buried. She looked at the two gravestones: Agnarr and Iduna. She walked forward and placed a wet hand on Agnarr’s grave.
“Father,” she said. Rain ran down her face in rivulets and dropped off in little salt-mixed hailstones. The ground below her froze and she looked at it in concern as the spot grew. She glanced longingly at Iduna’s grave marker and then back to her father’s. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t!” She turned and she began running back to the castle leaving a wide, cold trail behind her.
Running recklessly, Elsa left huge ice markers on the rocks in her wake as she scrambled to get to home, to get to the safety of her room. A stroke of thunder surprised her and she slipped, dropping the lantern and nearly falling into the fjord. Ice exploded out of her other hand in her startlement and locked her to the ground. Elsa had to pull herself free without losing her balance or the benefit of the lantern.
Once Elsa had torn herself free, she carefully navigated the final outcropping of the rock crest and caught her breath outside the castle door. She trembled nervously and looked back at the ice patches that shone whenever the lightning flashed across the sky.
Letting herself in the side door to the castle, Elsa saw the chilly puddles her ice had melted into and sighed. The staff would be confused in the morning, but she had no choice but to go in the way she came and leave more mess. Elsa looked at her shaking hands and saw the scrapes from the rocks and took a deep breath. She could manage a little longer.
Quietly, she walked back toward her room and took full, deep breaths. Elsa opened her door with a quivering hand and nearly tumbled into the comfort of her bedroom. She had to keep herself from slamming the door behind her, and then she dropped to the floor, letting out the loud sob she had been holding in. Ice and snow burst from her in a maelstrom, and she lay in it, weeping.