Chapter Text
ELSA
Elsa felt nothing but some distant pain beyond the blackness that had consumed her. She let out a single breath, shaky and pained. She didn’t have the strength to open her eyes, so Elsa allowed herself to continue drifting. Hell is hotter, so I must not have been sent there, the woman thought. She was most likely drifting in the in-between.
That was the only thing which could explain her still ‘breathing’ and feeling pain, after she’d fallen and drowned in the fjord.
Somewhere above her, a bird squawked.
Her eyes fluttered open. Elsa turned her head slightly and gasped quietly. That made her cough out water violently, but that didn’t stop her from realizing that she was in the middle of the ocean. Her grip tightened on the driftwood beneath her, and she could feel her magic acting up.
When she was done coughing up water, Elsa lifted her head to better take in her surroundings. “What in the world?” she whispered hoarsely. Her brow furrowed in confusion.
She only saw the vast blueness of the sea, and the gray sky. It could easily become black, she thought, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Frost began to coat her hands and the driftwood beneath her before Elsa forced her fear and her magic down. There was no storm to cast her down to the seafloor.
Elsa continued to drift, blinking water from her eyes.
It wasn’t cold, but her ball gown and cape felt so heavy on her. Her hair, too, was wet and stuck to her skin, long out of the hairstyle she had put it in.
Another bird squawked. Or maybe it hadn’t, and she was just hearing things…
Where am I? she wondered, too fatigued to speak. A fish darted by her foot. Elsa pressed her lips together. She had to get to land. There were bigger things than that little fish out here.
Elsa shifted on the wood and pushed more of her weight on it. It wasn’t big enough to carry her body, but she didn’t need a makeshift boat. With her magic, she propelled herself forward. She had no clue where she was going, or which direction was north or east, but this felt right.
Thinking about land made her think of Arendelle, Anna, and her magic flared at the thought of her sister’s desperate shouting, and Elsa stopped. She closed her stinging eyes but forced herself to continue swimming.
The gray clouds darkened and cast shadows over her. Elsa looked up with a scowl. “Of course,” she grumbled, and thunder boomed as a response. The sea stirred as the rain began to fall. She pushed against the rolling waves and formed a sphere of ice around her face when the waves and rain continued to obscure her vision.
The waves grew more violent, and her only choice was to fight them with blasts of her own ice. The wind whipped around her and threatened to throw her from the driftwood.
Her breathing became more erratic as she fought, and her blood pounded in her ears, louder than the thunder booming overhead.
As Elsa struggled to keep her body afloat, a large shadow enveloped her. She turned her head, futilely trying to blink salt and rainwater out of her eyes and saw a large wave staring her down.
Elsa gasped, and as lightning flashed, she saw the outline of a horse—
The wave came crashing down with a hissing fury, and Elsa was thrown in the sea.
Dark blue enveloped her as she fell through the water. Her garments were weighing her down, and there was pressure all around her. Is this what they felt when they were dying? Elsa wondered, the pain in her chest building. She hated to think of it, their deaths, but how could she not, when this was the closest she’d been to them in so long?
She didn’t want to die, least of all like this!
Elsa burst out of the sea with a flurry of ice, and when she was above the waves, she created a pad of ice for her land on. The ice pad rocked in the waves, and Elsa built it up into a boat with a burst of energy.
I have to get to land, the woman thought, determined.
The sea shook her boat, and the water seemed to have a personal vendetta against her, hitting her and making her shake. Despite this, Elsa grinned madly when she spotted a black dot in the distance that was steadily growing as she advanced.
“Elsa,” the wind whispered. No, not the wind—her mother.
Elsa looked up to the weeping sky, voice caught in her throat. Golden lightning split the black sky and her mother’s eyes pierced through her for a single moment—or maybe that was another figment of her fracturing mind. What was for certain, though, was Anna’s voice, screaming Elsa’s name.
She flinched when another one of Anna’s screams echoed through the air.
“Stop,” the woman pleaded, covering her ears, and cowering in her rocking boat. Elsa slammed against the side of the boat and closed her eyes. Another shout—“Stop it!”
The next words were a murmur: “You left me, Elsa.” The words were so close to her ear, Elsa slashed her arm through the air and destroyed the side of her boat. Her tears mixed with the rain and froze on her cheeks.
The whispers continued, building and building as her vision blurred. The whirlwind around Elsa became icy as turmoil raged inside of her.
I can’t stop this, she realized, and turned her focus back to getting to the black dot that Elsa could now see was a castle. A dark castle with large dragons guarding it, perched atop its black walls. Their necks were stretched out, and their teeth were bared, threatening all that sailed towards them. She could hear their hissing above the waves, and they wobbled before her as she grew ever closer to their gray domain.
There was no castle such as this in Arendelle, or anywhere else in the world that Elsa knew. Had known, she corrected, huddling in her boat and covering her ears again.
“Left me, left me, left me,” her tormentor echoed.
Elsa burrowed her face into her knees and shook her head. The pain in her chest had grown and spread, and she couldn’t get her breathing under control, couldn’t get her thoughts in order. What were the words? Don’t feel. Don’t feel. “Don’t feel,” she whispered to herself.
It was as though she was in her room again, she safe from judgment, and the world safe from her.
It could be that way forever, something treacherous whispered, even louder than the wind. You needn’t bother the castle ruler, and all their dragons. You could remain out here, drifting and drifting forevermore. No one would bother her, and no one would get hurt, their hearts frozen in their chests and their skin an icy blue.
Another wave crashed against her.
“Elsa,” her father said. She peered up from her knees. He wasn’t there, but his voice lingered, warm and assuring: “You’re not a monster, Elsa.” His voice distorted, only the word ‘monster’ repeating. Thunder boomed.
She shook her head frantically, sobbing. “No, no, he would never—!” Her words broke off into another sob, and the world exploded in a mix of ice and water. The whole world shrieked at her, loud and piercing, and Elsa and her little boat crashed against rock and sand.
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