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It was very hard to sleep when someone was climbing onto her bed, but Elsa tried anyway.
"Elsa!" said an insistent voice. "Wake up, wake up!"
"Anna," groaned Elsa, trying to push the younger girl away. "Go back to sleep. You shouldn't be in here."
"But the sky's awake," said Anna, flopping down on top of Elsa. It was impressive how much weight she could throw around when she wanted to. "And there's no-one in the servant's quarters to play with. Not as well as you play."
It was an invitation, Elsa knew, but she ignored it and managed to wriggle free from the weight pinning her down. "Go play by yourself," she said, giving Anna enough of a shove that the younger girl slid sideways off the bed.
She landed with a soft thud, but just huffed in annoyance. Not hurt, then. Elsa buried her face in the pillow and waited for Anna to give up and go back to her quarters when she felt a wholly unmysterious tugging at her bedsheets again. Anna sat on top of her, and Elsa could hear the grin in her voice.
"Wanna build a snowman?
She never could say no to Anna. There were a few other servants' children that she saw from time to time, but Anna was the only one that wasn't frightened of her because she was a princess.
Anna wasn't afraid of her ice powers, either, but that was almost an afterthought. Nobody else dared to approach a princess. But now they were both laughing as they ran down the stairs, hand in hand, trying and failing to hush each other as they made their way into the ballroom.
"Are you ready?" said Elsa.
Without a moment's hesitation, Anna nodded.
It only took a moment. A stray footstep, reaching out, and then Elsa could hear herself crying as she cradled Anna, her best friend, her only friend, into her lap and called for her parents.
She looked up desperately as they came in. Her parents would fix this, they had to; but her mother looked at her in horror and her father in anger.
"Elsa, what have you done?" he said.
And it was in that moment that she knew she was a monster.
The trolls said that they needed to take away Anna's memories, and then her parents said that they needed to take away Anna. All that Elsa could see was the white streak in Anna's hair as her father carried her into the servant's quarters, gave her back to her parents, and said that Anna and Elsa were not to play together any more.
Elsa was given a key, and told to lock her door at night. She supposed that it was only the right thing to do.
She heard a knock at her door the next night, light and nervous. "Elsa?" said Anna. "Open up. Let me in."
"No, Anna."
"C'mon," said Anna. "We can go play." She paused. "Do you want to build a snowman?"
Yes, Elsa thought. More than anything.
But she said nothing. Anna could not know about her powers, not any more. Nobody could. They were too dangerous to be used. She looked down at her hands, looking and not finding anything that made her strange, that showed the wrongness in her skin.
There was no sign.
It was most days, at first. A knock at her door, an invitation to come play. Slowly they dwindled in number. It was a relief to not have to send Anna away any more, but it hurt just as much when the knock did not come.
She still saw Anna from time to time, out of the corner of her eye, and as they grew older Elsa had to set more time aside for her studies, and Anna began to work as a servant in the castle instead.
As much as possible, she avoided the younger girl. She could not bear the sadness in Anna's eyes, the edge of accusation that sometimes crept in there. More and more often, nowadays. But it was not always possible, and finally, when Elsa was twelve and wore her gloves like armour and always kept her eyes straight ahead, she was walking down the corridor when Anna stepped out from one of the rooms, a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other.
"Elsa!" she sprang into Elsa's path, dropping bucket and mop both and splashing water on the floor. Elsa tried to step around her, but Anna got in her way again, reaching out as if she was going to take Elsa's hands like they once had. Elsa shied back. "Please, it's just me! It's just Anna."
"I know," said Elsa. She had meant it to be sharp, but it came out tender. Anna looked like she remembered: she still pulled her socks up high, still rolled up her sleeves, still wore her hair in two plaits. A streak of white marked one of them.
Sadness clouded Anna's gaze again, and Elsa had to turn her eyes away. because she wanted so badly to fix it. "Why don't you talk to me any more? We used to be such good friends."
It had to stop. It wasn't safe. Elsa could feel the air getting colder around her, and knew that she had to leave before Anna spoke to her any longer, before she wanted to blurt out everything that was wrong. She made herself meet Anna's eyes, forced herself to speak as coldly as possible.
"Because princesses don't associate with servant girls."
Anna stepped back as if she had been struck, chest heaving, tears springing to her eyes. It was just a moment's pain, Elsa told herself, to save her from the danger that was her former friend. But the moment lasted an eternity in her aching heart.
It was not Anna that walked away. Before her nerve could break, Elsa swept past, stepping over the spilled water, and returned to her room. Behind her, she might just have heard a stifled sob.
She locked the door, closed her eyes, and leant her forehead against it. "Forgive me, Anna," she whispered. "Just go... go and be safe."
Her powers grew stronger. She would freeze her windows close, smash vases with her ice. Pair after pair of gloves... helped, but could not hold it all back. It seemed that nothing could.
They woke her in the middle of the night to tell her that her parents had died, and that she was Queen. Her first order was to send them from her room. As they left, the ice crawled up the walls, across the windows, and into her heart.
She could not go to her parents' funeral. Ice hung suspended in the air and she could not control it, could not hold it in, could not control herself. She was supposed to be the Queen, and her own hands betrayed her.
Elsa slumped down against the door, and let the cold devour her. It had long since become clear that she could not hold it back.
The silence that wrapped around her was broken by a knock at the door. There was a weight in the centre of her chest that stopped her from speaking, an invisible scarf pulling tight around her neck.
"Elsa?" said a hesitant voice.
No, no, no, she could not bear it. Not that voice, not now. Elsa pressed her hands over her ears, such unqueenly behaviour, but she could not do anything else.
"Elsa, I know you're there," Anna continued. "They... your ministers are asking for you. Please come out. If... if you need someone to talk to..."
She fell silent again. Elsa gave a silent sob, feeling her tears freezing on her cheeks.
"My parents were on the ship too."
Anna's voice cracked as she spoke, and Elsa's fingers twitched. The door handle was so close, and it would be so easy to turn it, but when she looked at it, it was covered in ice. As Elsa watched, the ice grew thicker, more wickedly sharp points.
She heard a soft thump against the wood, then a soft hushing sound as Anna slid down on the other side. Were they back to back through the wood? Only a couple of inches apart, but separated by more than Elsa could ever dare to face.
"I'm here," said Anna, her voice soft and distant and the only one that Elsa had heard since her parents died. All other voices had spoken to the Queen, and her alone. "If you want to talk. Do..." she trailed off again.
Her last words were so quiet that Elsa could barely hear them.
"Do you want to build a snowman?"
Years passed. Elsa became the Queen Presumptive of Arendelle, and waited for her coronation when the Presumptive would be removed. Her gloves grew thicker and longer and, if she concentrated, they worked. As long as she did not look too long at the portrait of her father, or think too much that the crown she was to wear had once been her mother's, she could control it.
Conceal it.
Her twenty-first birthday was not celebrated; her coronation took its place. The crown sat heavy on her head, and as she stood before the dancing crowd she kept her hands clasped so that they would not shake, but she told herself that it would only need to be for one day.
Dukes and Princesses and Lords and Ladies were presented to her each in turn, and she was relieved to have turned down the Duke of Weselton's offer to dance when she saw what he actually looked like attempting to move to music.
"Your Majesty," said Kai, drawing her attention round to the latest arrival. "Prince Hans of the Southern Isles."
The Prince bowed deeply to her, and Elsa inclined her head in return. The Southern Isles were not a close trading partner of Arendelle's, but there had been peace between them for a very long time, and it had been a matter of respect to send an invitation for their chosen representative to attend the coronation.
However, Elsa had not expected it to be the thirteenth prince. When the Duke of Weselton had attended in person, and Corona had sent their Crown Princess, it was frankly one step from an insult for the thirteenth prince to be the one to appear.
She did not let it show on her face, however. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Prince Hans," she said.
The Prince met her eyes with surprising confidence, surprising candour. "The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty, as is the honour. I am indeed grateful for the chance to be allowed to visit Arendelle, though perhaps..." a quirk of a smile. "Perhaps my grasp of the language allowed for it."
"You do speak it very well," Elsa allowed. Perhaps that was an explanation; Prince Hans's accent was excellent, his words well-formed. "How have you found us, in your time here so far?"
"A little cold," said Hans, "but quite beautiful."
There was something in his eyes that made her wonder whether he meant something else instead.
Prince Hans spoke with her for some time that evening. He was not unpleasant company, but Elsa felt that there was something beneath his words, unspoken save for the gaze that he kept a little too intensely upon her. At first, she was thankful for the manner in which he slyly turned away other men who approached her in hope of a dance, without once asking her to dance with him instead, but all too soon it became discomforting. His talk of his own family, his isolation from them, was a little too on-point. A little too close to the ache in her own heart.
"Pardon me, Prince Hans," she said finally, "but would you mind getting us a drink?"
There was a momentary flicker in his eyes, but his smile did not fade. "Of course, Your Majesty."
Elsa breathed a little more easily as he slipped away to the buffet to claim two new glasses of champagne. As her eyes followed his path, however, her heart seemed to stutter for a moment as she saw Anna standing behind the table, eyes cast down, perfectly demure in her servant's outfit. It looked so wrong on her.
It had been nine years since they had spoken to each other. But the white streak in Anna's hair still hurt to see.
It became harder and harder, as the evening wore on, to put up with Prince Hans's words. What had started as seemingly friendly conversation had worn on too long, and had developed rather too much of a tendency to deflect away other people from speaking to her. Hans must have been at about her age, he thought, and there was a dearth of princesses of their generation. If he was looking to marry her then he was a fool; she was Queen, and he was only the thirteenth prince of his own land. It would be an insulting match.
Nonetheless, he continued to push, until finally Elsa felt anger trickling in beneath her careful facade. Before she could say anything that she could regret, she did her best to extricate herself from the conversation.
"You must excuse me, Prince Hans, but alas there are others to whom I should speak."
She put down her half-full glass on the tray of a passing servant, and went to leave. To her horror, she felt Hans's hand wrap around hers, the slip of her glove. With a sharp breath, Elsa whipped her hand away, but it was too late, and her glove came away in Hans's hand revealing one of her ever-treacherous hands.
"Your Majesty, please," said Prince Hans, voice politely firm but with something dark in his eyes, "I feel it would be advantageous-"
"No, it would not," Elsa replied sharply. She tucked her bare right hand beneath her left arm, and held out her other. "Now, kindly return my glove to me."
With a move that looked natural, Hans folded the hand that held the glove back to his chest, his expression becoming concerned. "Are you sure that you are all right, Your Majesty?"
She made an impatient gesture with her left hand. "My glove, Prince Hans." When he simply looked at her in blithe surprise, his expression oh-so-sweet and oh-so-kindly, she turned upon her heel to walk away. People were staring; of course they were. She was the Queen. But it was dangerous to have too many eyes upon her, especially when her hand was open to the air. She felt so hot with fear that she could not even tell whether the room was growing colder around her or not. To Kai, standing as ever close by, she spoke as calmly as she was able. "This has been celebration enough. The party is over; close the gates."
"Your Majesty-" said Prince Hans, behind her, once again.
It was too much to bear. Elsa whipped round as she reached the door, right hand making a flat arcing gesture. "I said enough!"
Time crystallised around her as she felt the cold, invigorating, terrible rush of her magic through her skin. Her fingers flashed, and for a moment she felt the rush of the ice through the air, before it hit the ground and grew up in spikes that formed half a circle around her.
Her chest tightened. No. She had lost control again, and if someone had been too close...
She could not bear to think of it. Backing up against the door, she groped for the handle, then wrenched it open to flee from every accusatory stare.
The Queen is a monster, they seemed to cry. She could not do what her father believed she could.
It was safer on the North Mountain. For years she had looked upon it from her window, wondering whether it, too, was made terrible by the ice that surrounded it. But if it was terrible, then she was terrible too, and it was the only place that she could ever deserve to be.
Nobody else would come here. There was nobody that she could hurt, nor frighten, nobody whose life she would need to restrict to keep her own secret. She had cousins in other Kingdoms, princes in their own right; her councillors were clever men, and could rule as well in their own names as in hers. It was better that her people were free from a Queen such as herself.
She threw away her glove, her cape, her crown. They had been the daughter her father had wanted, the Queen that her Kingdom deserved. She was not that.
But here, alone, she could let the magic rush through her without doing any harm. She could build a bridge, a castle, a dress, and it did not matter; she could play with the fire without the risk of burning anyone.
Perhaps one day ice would replace fire in such a saying.
Alone, she might have still been dangerous, but it no longer mattered. And so she was free.
She could taste the thinness of the air, but it did not matter to her lungs. The cold seeped into her, filling her up with a rush of life, stopping the thirst on the tongue and the hunger in her belly, quieting the tiredness that had plagued her for so long.
She could live here, Elsa thought, unafraid and without inspiring fear.
A knock on the door stilled her, as she stood on the balcony of her castle. There were no people up here; that had always been the beauty and the horror of the North Mountain. As she began to descend the stairs, though, she caught the blurred outline of a person, and with a thought as easy as a breath she let the great ice doors swing open.
She might have expected one of her councillors, one of her guards, even soldiers come to ask their questions or bring her home. On them, she was prepared to close her gates once again.
She had never expected to see Anna again.
"Anna?" her voice shook as she stepped forwards. "What are you doing here?"
It shook Anna from her slow turn, swept the enthralled expression from her face. "I came to bring you home," she said. "Your... Your Majesty. Elsa. Please."
"No, I - I belong here. Don't you see?" The gown she now wore was the same ice as her castle, which grew from the mountain like another peak. Surely anyone could see that this was the only place fit to be her home. "You should probably go."
"What?" Anna sounded offended, and took a step up the stairs as Elsa shied back again. "No, I'm not going back now. I only just got here."
"There is no food," said Elsa. "No water, no heat. There is only ice, Anna." She had not meant to say the name, and it clenched around her heart again. Anna was so much as Elsa remembered, forthright and determined and just a little bull-headed, as she started up the stairs. "Nothing can live up here."
"Then why are you here? Come back to Arendelle; that's where you belong."
"No, Anna," said Elsa, desperately. She wrapped her arms around herself, hiding her hands away, and turned to the stairs that led further up. "Good bye."
She turned, and fled.
"Elsa!" Anna's voice rang from the walls as she followed. "Elsa, come back! It's all right! We can sort this out, you don't have to hide this!"
It was not as if she could, not any more. The levée had broken and her magic had rushed forth before them all, and Elsa was not sure that she could put it back again. It had seeped so deeply into her that she was not sure that she could rip it from her flesh. Her mind whirled so badly that it was not until she reached her upper chamber that she even realised that she could have shut the doors behind her, and shut out Anna once again.
"It's better this way," said Elsa. The pain in her chest was back, fuelled by the raw concern in Anna's features, a concern that Elsa knew that she did not deserve. "For all of you. For me, as well."
"Well, I mean," Anna gave a nervous laugh, "I get it. But if you could just come home, unfreeze the fjord, I'm sure we could sort this all out. I mean..."
"Wait, what?" said Elsa, turning sharply. "The fjord?"
Anna looked sheepish, as if this were somehow her fault. "It's frozen over, nothing can get in or out. But it's fine, I mean, if you can just thaw it then..."
She had thought that she had taken her storm with her, that the cold would simply follow her to this desolate place and not hurt other people. But somehow, it seemed, her curse had managed to linger in her wake, trapping the very place she wanted to set free. "But I can't," she said, desperately. "I don't know how."
Snow started to whirl in the air around her again. She had been right, of course; the genie could not be put back into the bottle. With a concerned look at the snow, Anna started to walk towards her, but Elsa backed away desperately as the wind swirled faster around them. "It's fine," said Anna, "we can work it out."
"Why did you come here?" shouted Elsa, above the storm. "Why did you follow me?"
"Because you might be a Queen," Anna called back. She was a blur of colour behind the whirling snow, "and you might have been a princess, but before that you were my friend. And I know we can fix this!"
"I can't!"
It burst from her, in more than words, in a blast of ice that cut through the air and sent Anna staggering back. Elsa almost went to help, then stopped and drew away again; her hands were too dangerous, and now her gloves were gone. She could not help. A man came running in, a stranger, but Anna clearly trusted him to help her up and Elsa could only trust him as well.
"Go," she said, managing to stop it from being a sob.
"I'm not leaving without you," said Anna.
But she had to, how could she not see. "Yes," said Elsa, letting magic rush to her hands again. "You are."
She let the snow-creature that she had created guard her door, and hid away behind it. She let it defend her and then, when it could not, and only when it could not, did she defend herself.
Ever since the horror in her father's eyes, Elsa had been used to fear, had come to terms with the idea of revulsion. But in the eyes of Weselton's men, she saw hatred, and for the first time it occurred to her that people who did not know her, for only a glimpse of her powers, could want her dead.
Shock rushed into horror rushed into anger. She had done the right thing by them. She had left, she had given up everything to make them safe, given herself over to the magic that she could be alone, that she would never need to trouble other people again. It would never even affect these men. But they aimed their crossbows at her, and their anger, and she struck back out at them.
"Queen Elsa!" Hans's voice startled her from her pain. Why would he, of all people, have come after her? "Don't be the monster they think you are."
They know I am a monster, came her first thought, but quick on its heel was: No, they think I am a monster.
Blinking, she came back to herself, seeing two men, each one inches from death because of her magic. Because of her. Elsa lowered her hands and drew back, because no, this was not her. The whole reason for her flight had been to make people safe, not to hurt them like this.
She felt the crack of her ice as much as heard it, and looked up to see the chandelier above her head falling like a thousand mirrored shards. It fell, and Elsa tried to run even as she felt it rushing towards her, and then her feet went from under her and everything went black.
Elsa awoke in darkness, and in chains. It was Prince Hans who came begging for her to release the Kingdom, and only then did she fully understand how far her curse had spread. Elsa whispered to him that she did not know how, and thought that she saw true sadness in his eyes.
Then he told her that Anna had not returned, and her heart felt like it was shattered as well.
She had to leave. It was the only thing that she could do that had a chance of saving her Kingdom... and of saving herself. She had heard the guards whispering of her death. This time, it would need to be further than the North Mountain, beyond the borders of Arendelle itself. Even now, she felt no hunger, nor thirst, and Elsa knew in the pit of her stomach that she would not need them again if she took to her magic instead.
The chains shattered beneath her ice, and the wall collapsed as she turned to it in desperation. Elsa fled the dungeon only to find that her storm had worsened, winds buffetting her as she ran from the castle on foot once again. Her tears were burning hot in her eyes, but the wind whipped the away to freeze on the air. The fjord was frozen solid, boats looming like icy hulks over her, the storm so thick that she could barely see them before she was upon them.
Out of nowhere, it seemed, Hans appeared once again. He had a sword in his hand, lowered, and was shielding his eyes against the snow.
"Please," she asked him. One more thing, after everything that he had done. "Make sure they find Anna."
"The servant girl?" he shouted. "Do not pretend you care. You made that clear enough when you froze her heart and killed her."
She could have left her Kingdom, her crown, left everyone behind for their own safety. She could have entrusted her people in the hands of another. She could have chosen, willingly, to live out the rest of her life alone.
But to have killed Anna?
Elsa's feet went out from under her, and with a cry she fell to her knees. To have killed anyone would have made her a monster. To have killed Anna... there were no words. To have blotted out that smile and laughter and optimism was a crime so far beyond words that Elsa understood with a jolt the sword in Hans's hand.
She deserved it.
Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she slumped on the ice, and it was only when the blow did not come, when there was a rush in the air like a breath of magic instead, that she looked around.
Anna stood before her, an icy statue. With trembling hands and a breaking heart Elsa reached out to cup the girl's face, whimpering pleas that no, no, anything but this had occurred.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed, throwing herself about the girl's neck. She clung to the ice as if it were sunshine-warm, as if somehow Anna's softness would make up for the ungiving ice. "I did this," she whispered to the icy shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The storm had silenced itself around them. She did not know when that had happened. All that Elsa knew was that she had destroyed the one that mattered most in the world, and there was nothing she could ever do to make up for it.
Something changed. The shoulders on which she leant shifted, cold ice becoming warm fabric beneath her cheek. Hardly daring to breath, Elsa looked up again to see Anna smiling tenderly, colour in her cheeks and warmth in her eyes.
"Anna?" she whispered.
Anna just nodded, and did not flinch away when Elsa reached in to hold her close.
Elsa was not sure that she could ever make up for what she had done. "I love you," Anna had said as explanation for her sacrifice, as if that and that alone was explanation enough. With trembling hands, Elsa had held onto her, and she must have paused too long because she saw Anna's face fall slightly, and the moment was gone again.
Her ice ebbed away again. She was not quite sure how, but she had her suspicions, and it only became clearer when she could stand in her room before a pillar of her ice, think of Anna, and watch it ebb away once again.
Making up for the years, though... that was the hard part. Years in which she had denied their friendship, pushed Anna away under the pretense of arrogance. And making things up to Anna frightened her far more than getting control of her Kingdom once again.
Anna liked chocolate, she remembered that. With a basket of them in hand, Elsa made her way to the servants' quarters, not unaware that people were hurrying from sight as she did so. Gerda had willingly said which room was Anna's, not thinking too much of it with everything else that had happened.
Raising her hand to knock, Elsa hesitated. Perhaps this was wrong. Most likely Anna would not want to talk to her again.
She should at least give her the chocolate, though. Holding her breath, she rapped on the wood.
"Just a minute!" called Anna. There was a thud, hurrying footsteps, and then Anna pulled the door open with one hand, the other holding the half-finished braid in her hair. At the sight of Elsa, she froze. "Your Majesty!"
"Please," said Elsa quickly. "Just... Elsa."
"Is there something you need me for?"
Elsa fumbled for words for a moment, then remembered the chocolate in her hands and thrust it in Anna's general direction. Frowning, Anna abandoned her work on her hair and carefully accepted the basket. As she opened it, Elsa found herself holding her breath, then Anna gave the softest, fondest smile that Elsa had ever seen and looked up again with hope and wonder in her eyes.
"They're for you," said Elsa. "And... I wanted to ask you something."
When she did not quite managed to ask it immediately, Anna gave an encouraging nod. "Yes?"
Elsa held out one hand. "Do you want to build a snowman?"