Chapter 1 – Do You believe in Magic?

I'm back with more melancholy. This is the sequel to Opening the Doors. Reading that is not a prerequisite to this, but it would be helpful. The development of this story was helped by TheFrozenQueenOfSnowAndIce. Thank you.

I figured I'd dive right in with the feels, so let's see if this story can live up the emotional turmoil of its predecessor.

SpicedGold

"Elsa, darling? Why aren't you asleep?" The Queen of Arendelle came to her oldest daughter's bed. It had been some time since she had left the two princesses sleeping soundly, and now, hours later, she was doing a last check on the children before bed.

But one princess was sitting up, staring at the moon in the sky, her blonde hair made of moonbeams.

"I couldn't sleep. Anna snores."

The offending princess was out like a light, and utterly silent.

"Oh, I see." The Queen sat down, put an arm around her daughter. This was often Elsa's excuse; it was always Anna's fault for Elsa's waking. But Elsa's mind was often plagued with powerful thoughts and feelings, and many things woke her at night. Blaming Anna made it feel like Elsa wasn't cowering away from her own thoughts. This unease wasn't her fault.

Often it was the pull of power, the snow and ice under her skin trying to break loose, that coaxed her from sleep. If she held the ice in too long it invaded her dreams and twisted its emotions through her sleep until Elsa awoke in a pile of snow.

But night time brought comfort, too. She had to hide her powers during the daylight hours, she had to keep them a secret, for now, and it meant that this tiny little child, only seven years old, had to keep her true self a secret too. A heavy burden to bear, to only be allowed to be yourself when you were certain that no one was watching.

"Anna's not snoring now."

"No." Elsa agreed. "She's stopped." Swirls of blue danced around her fingers, against her will, showing her agitation. She kept staring at the moon. "Do you want to see what I dreamed of?"

This, too, was a common excuse. Elsa would make up elaborate stories, happy stories, to cover up the demons she saw at night.

"Yes, of course," the Queen said softly, still holding Elsa against her side.

Elsa raised her arms, and a wiggle of her fingers produced more streaks of ice blue sparkles, more magic. She clenched the tip of her tongue between her teeth, concentrating hard, and her face morphed into a frown off utter concentration.

The blue moved, took shape, and became a lumpy misshapen snowman. "I dreamed of him."

The snowman had been under her skin all day, but as per the rules, she could not use her magic around other people. She had to hide it, hide him, hide herself. She concentrated, but the snowman wavered away and disappeared.

"He looks like he was a lot of fun," the Queen said.

"He is. He likes hugs." Elsa grinned.

"Hugs like this?" Idun scooped Elsa off the bed and onto her lap, holding onto her.

Elsa giggled. "Just like that. But I like hugs more than he does. You'll always give me hugs, right?"

"Right until the day you ask me to stop," Idun promised.

"Well," speculated the young princess. "That'll never happen."

"Then I'll never stop giving you hugs."

Elsa's attention was suddenly caught by the window again. The sky above the mountain tops burst to life, weaving ribbons of bright, colourful lights through true inky black.

"Look, Elsa," Idun said. "The sky is awake."

"Papa says the sky isn't awake, because it isn't a thing," Elsa said, in the haughty way children speak when they think they're one-upping an adult. "I know that."

"Why do you know that?"

"Because I'm going to be a Queen one day, and it's the sort of thing a Queen ought to know." Elsa sent her mother a sideways look, as though questioning her ability as a monarch. "I don't believe that the sky is awake." She seemed proud of this declaration.

"Then how is the sky shining?" Idun asked.

That floored Elsa. She chewed her lip, thinking hard, because she was going to be a Queen one day, and this the sort of thing a Queen ought to know. She hummed to herself, still thinking. Finally, she shrugged. "I don't know. But I don't believe it's alive."

"Maybe it's magic," the Queen suggested softly. She took Elsa's tiny hands in her own. "You believe in magic, don't you?"

Elsa grinned. "Of course I believe in magic." She stared at her hands, a proud smile on her face. "Because I am magic, and I believe in me."

'I believe in me.' When did I stop thinking that?

Now, Elsa sat under the window, watching the northern lights dance through the sky. It had been a long, hard day, but despite the fact that she was bone tired, she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Her eyes were aching, the world around her sounded dull, but she was stubbornly staring at the sky, because she liked the dark, and the comfort it brought, and after the day she had had she didn't want to waste the night sleeping.

That, and she was afraid of the dreams that came when she was feeling this way. When the world around her was tight and hot, when her heart hammered in her chest at the littlest of things, when her hands shook and her voice shook, when the white scars on her arm screamed for attention.

These were nights that drew in nightmares, terrible thoughts that crammed themselves into the void of her mind and reared up when she was trying to settle down. And they would send her heart racing anew, and sometimes rip the ice from her body, and she didn't want to face that right now.

Tomorrow, she knew, would be worse than today. Today had been work, and more work, and she was able to cope with that, given time. But tomorrow . . . tomorrow she and Anna were going through their late parents' things. Documents, clothes, books, trinkets.

Everything that they had been avoiding for four years.

Anna thought it would be cathartic.

Elsa thought it would be agonizing.

And if she fell asleep thinking of her parents, twisted ugly dreams would arise. So she stared at the sky, instead, remembering a time when she had believed in magic.

"Elsa?" A very soft voice, weighed down by sleep. "You awake? Why are you awake?"

"Why are you?" Elsa asked, turning to face her door.

Anna was rubbing her eyes; she looked as though it had taken a superhuman effort just to get there. She was clearly asleep on her feet. "Checking on you."

"Anna, you're so tired. Why didn't you stay in bed?" Elsa stood up, going to her sister worriedly. "I'm fine, but you-"

"Bae told me to come." Anna admitted with a yawn, eyes staying stubbornly closed. She swayed slightly in place; Elsa stepped forwards to catch her in case she fell. Anna made a vague gesture with one hand. "He said you were sad."

Elsa couldn't really deny it.

The creature in question stood at Anna's feet, gazing upwards with eyes of endless ice blue. He was a reindeer calf crafted from snow, a promise from Elsa to Anna that Elsa would never, ever shut her sister out again. And since she had created him, he was innately linked to her emotions.

He sensed when she was sad, or upset, or agonising over decisions, and he alerted Anna to it. Obviously her internal musing this evening had been melancholy enough that the calf had woken Anna.

"It's fine, Anna. I was just thinking. I'm fine, and nothing's wrong." She had to reassure, to convince Anna that no, actually, she wasn't teetering on the edge of an emotional relapse. Both sisters were still shaken from events just a few weeks prior, where Elsa, under the weight of all she had to be, had come undone and taken a shard of ice to her wrist.

She was on the road to recovery now, but, she was discovering, the road to recovery was not a straight and simple line.

"Thank you, Bae," she addressed the calf, who rubbed his nose against Anna's leg. She must have been very asleep, because she didn't even flinch at the cold. "You can take Anna back to bed now."

"It's too far," Anna mumbled, leaning more and more of her weight on Elsa. "I'll just sleep here."

And just like that the room was frigid, because Elsa knew what lay in store tonight. Tonight there would be screaming and kicking and terror because her mind was going to unearth her every fear and thrust them behind her closed eyes.

Tonight the world would not be safe.

"You can't stay here, Anna. Go back to bed."

There was no answer from the semi-comatose princess hanging off Elsa's shoulder. Elsa sighed, and led Anna to the edge of the bed. She struggled to pull the covers back with one hand, and rather unceremoniously dropped Anna.

Anna arranged herself happily, and was instantly asleep.

Elsa pulled the covers over her, and whispered to the calf. "Stay with her."

Bae snorted, and jumped onto the bed. He turned a few circles, then settled into a tangle of legs and floppy ears, his eyes closing as well.

Elsa left them quietly to find somewhere else to sleep.

She should have chosen Anna's room, she thought, when she awoke later in a state, fists frozen into the blankets, snow piling onto the floor as she moved, ice crackling up the walls in a familiar fashion. She should have gone to Anna's bed, and breathed into Anna's pillow and reminded herself that Anna was alive and well and warm.

The ice was still spreading, racing in webs with every beat of her heart. She stared into the darkness, head turned to where she knew, just knew, her parent's portrait would be staring back at her.

This was their room, after all.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm trying."

The crackling ice betrayed her, and the tears that been hiding all day reformed. She lay down again, in the soft snow, and let the tears go.

Conceal it, don't feel it . . . no, that was wrong. Let it go, that was right. She sobbed into the pillow.

Let it go, let it go.

Can't hold it back anymore.

"I'm trying," she whispered again. "I'm doing better."

The tears were okay. They were just the bad thoughts leaving. They weren't weakness; they weren't something to be ashamed of. They were the nightmares escaping.

"You believe in magic, don't you?"

Elsa sniffed, and closed her eyes again. The darkness wrapped around her, it laid a blanket of calm over her. I believe there is magic.

There's a difference.