Anna had to be the one to tell Elsa that father was going to die.
She couldn't let a servant do it - Elsa was her sister, but really Anna knew that it was all she could do to get Elsa to finally talk to her.
Padding lightly down the dim hallway to Elsa's door, Anna felt the steadily growing tension of years of separation willing to be released. Her shadow danced on the walls like the multi-faceted reflection of a bad memory come to mock her. She approached, heart beating incessantly in her ears, searching for anything in her mind not too painful to hold on to; images of snowmen, ice-skating on a frozen pool, the half-remembered thrill of sledding down the slopes of the fjord, that despite her grasping slipped into the black gulf that had grown between them.
Many weeks later, as she faced her father's door again and again, she would remember the initial hesitation that came today, standing before a portal to a world she had never known. The cold, gnawing doubt that she needn't bother, that nobody would listen or care, that the isolation went deeper than she knew. She was truly alone. It all came back to the closed door - a silent, malevolent sentry that should have been smashed down, but neither of them could muster the strength to do so. The door was stronger than she was, but here she was nonetheless, hoping.
Remembering finally why she was here, she tapped her knuckles - forgoing her usual sing-song pattern - against one of the door's embossments. A hollow, echoing sound effused through the thickness of the air.
"Please let me in, Elsa" she implored. Anna's pleadings, as usual, were met with cold silence.
Nothing. The door didn't budge. "This affects you just as much as me." Why is she so scared? Anna lay her hand flatly over the door, and rested her forehead beside it. She was ready to bridge the gap - to fall into the chasm as long as she knew there was a way to the other side, but was Elsa?
"It's papa…" she whispered, voice starting to waver. Anna sighed.
She nearly gave up - resigned to let a servant do the honors. Elsa would probably be happy she didn't have to talk to her anyway, when the door budged, opening by a crack. Anna started, surprised. she looked up and saw a single deep blue eye framed by platinum locks and a retroussé nose the likes of which Anna knew had no equal. The door gradually widened, seeming to buttress Elsa's apprehension.
"Hello Anna." Elsa let the door stop when only her slender frame would be able fit through.
"Can I come in? We have a lot to talk about," Anna asked. Elsa didn't concede any room.
"Out here is fine." She responded, ice beginning to creep into her voice. Elsa, to Anna's disappointment, didn't notice the wetness on her cheeks. She persisted, suddenly confident.
"You know I've never even seen the inside of your room before," allowing her tone match her sister's. "Don't you think now would be a good time?" She regretted how it sounded, but knew that Elsa needed to be pushed.
"What is it, Anna?" Elsa replied, exasperated. Anna was momentarily taken aback, but this time she controlled her anger, what else could she expect from the sister who could count the number of people she's ever interacted with on one hand? "I know you don't want to talk, but it's not easy for me to do this either," she said, "So I'll just say it: Father is dying."
For a thin slice of eternity Elsa simply stared at her, countenance betraying no inner-thoughts. Anna didn't expect a particularly strong reaction - she knew that Elsa didn't wear her emotions on her sleeve, yet her stoicism in the face of Anna's pain unnerved her.
She didn't wait for a response: "We need to be there for him. We need to help him through this and I can't do it alone. We're all he has left." Please help me, this once.
Anna put her hand flat against the door and pushed. Elsa did likewise. When Anna looked up Elsa was resolved. She knew then that she had crossed a line. Knowing that getting any closer would be impossible, and deciding not to force it, she let her hand fall slowly to her side. Anna learned the hard way that everything was delicate in regard to her sister; one wrong move - a misplaced word, even a misinterpreted glance - and their relationship, as tenuous as it ever was, would shatter, with only the passage of time left to mend it.
"How do you feel?" Anna finally asked.
"I feel… I don't know how I feel. I guess I don't feel... anything." But Anna knew better, she could see the storm brewing under the surface, in her eyes. She knew that Elsa could feel - feel perhaps the way she herself did. A glimpse into Elsa's world; a brief connection. Electricity in the air. An understanding - however slight, that was nevertheless real. Anna tried to impart all the sincerity and sympathy she could muster.
"Oh Elsa... I'm scared, you're scared, and to tell you the truth I'm not sure how I feel either, but why do we have to be apart? I'm sure we can figure this out together. For papa. For us."
A look entered Elsa's face then - was it nostalgia? Longing? Anna knew her sister had the same fond memories as she did, the same desire to restore what once was. A sudden empathy washed over Anna then, like a front out of some distant summertime; winds clearing away the haze that left the two stumbling in separation, unable to see or hear one another. She could see Elsa now, she could feel her pain and anguish. A tear traced itself down Elsa's aquiline cheekbone and fell to the floor as a statement of fact; Elsa was as human and full of feeling as she. They were not so different, it seemed then.
"I can help you, Elsa." She whispered, reaching out her hand, but when they brushed together she touched ice. How could someone be that cold? she thought. Yet before she could contemplate the numbing instant of contact, Elsa's eyes had gone wide and she was drawing fearfully back, away, into her sanctuary, the previous seconds of hopefulness lost. Their wall, their oppressor, had been mended.
"Goodbye Anna." The door with shut with a dull thud in her face.