"Your majesty?" Elsa averted her eyes to the closed door, resigning from the meticulous task that was deciding on which dress to put on for the day and simply settling on an eye-catching navy-blue ice dress.
"Um… May I come in?" the hesitant voice asked shakily outside her door. Elsa furrowed her brow a bit. No one she knew of in the castle sounded like that. Who could it be?
"Yes, you may," Elsa granted, albeit confused.
A large, burly blonde man opened the door carefully and nervously eyed her.
"I- I'm Kristoff. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm that guy that-"
"Oh, I know you. You're the," Elsa swallowed a bit, drinking in the man's odd appearance, "gentleman that Anna told me about. What brings you here?" Elsa questioned, working diligently to keep herself from outwardly reacting to the sudden stench that assaulted her nostrils when he stepped into her room.
"Well, I- umm… About that… I wanted to ask you if you would possibly consider allowing me to- uh… court your sister," he finished off, his expression resembling that of the appearance of a small child.
Elsa's eyes widened a bit, but she quickly controlled her expression, attempting to recover from the shock that this request brought about.
She reprimanded herself. She should have expected this. After all, Anna had gushed over the man as if he were some sort of dashing, valiant Prince Charming sort of fellow. Of course her sister would want to be… romantically involved with him. And judging by his stammering self, he likely felt the same.
Who was she to deny her sister love? Even if that love could've been someone that was a bit less pungent.
"Very well, you have my agreement," Elsa consented, eyeing the mountaineer. The look on his face almost mirrored her sister's signature "Wait, what?" face.
"Really?" he asked, and she could hear the disbelief in his voice.
"Really. But don't try any funny business," Elsa threatened a bit.
"Of course not, your majesty! I'd never ever do anything to hurt Anna," he said, emphatically expressing his feelings on the subject.
"Okay... Good," Elsa felt a genuine smile creep onto her face at the man's sincerity. She found it quite endearing that he cared for Anna as much as he seemed like he did.
"Okay," he responded. They fell into a bit of an awkward silence. Elsa looked down at her icy heels, trying not to stare at Kristoff.
"Well, I'm sure you're busy, so I'll be going," he grinned lopsidedly, backing out of the room. "Ow!" he yelped as he bumped the back of his head against the doorway. He was barely tall enough to reach it, but his height was enough to allow the doorway to smart quite nicely when he hit it.
"You okay?" Elsa asked, trying to suppress her giggles at the irritated glare thrown toward the doorway.
"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine," Kristoff affirmed.
Elsa nodded with a small smile. Kristoff very carefully avoided the doorway and exited the room.
"Cute," Elsa murmured to herself as she began getting ready for the meeting she had in an hour.
…
"Hey, Els, I'm going out with Kristoff. I'll see you later, love you!" Anna blurted out quickly as she ran past Elsa in the halls.
"Anna, wait!" Elsa held out a hand in the younger's direction. She sighed. Anna was already gone.
It seemed like Elsa never got to see Anna anymore. Whenever Elsa managed to work a break in her schedule so that she could spend the entirety of the free time playing with her sister, Anna would always be going off to do something with that lunkheaded mountain monkey.
Elsa automatically berated herself for thinking of another person in any such of a way. But despite this, another perhaps less inhibited part of her brain constantly yelled all sorts of obscenities about Anna's new beau.
Elsa was beginning to wish that she'd never given him her blessing.
Just yesterday morning, Anna was rushing off to go on some sort of sleigh ride with the blonde bozo and his reindeer. She took Olaf with her, too, so Elsa was left entirely alone at the castle.
And on that very night, Anna invited it to dinner and spent the whole time talking to it.
Elsa shook her head a bit. She really needed to stop referring to him as an "it."
It might have been ridiculous- and quite ironic retrospectively- but Elsa felt as if she were being shut out by her baby sister.
"Oh, Anna," Elsa allowed herself to whine a little. She crossed her arms in front of her in a sort of self-hug as she ambled back to her study. Elsa supposed she might as well do something productive since her sister obviously had better things to do than slow down for Elsa.
But, the logical part of Elsa's mind insisted, Elsa shouldn't be upset. She really couldn't blame Anna. Elsa hadn't done anything to earn her sister's love. Anna had every right to choose this Kristoff fellow over Elsa.
Elsa suddenly quite crushingly came to the realization that her relationship with her sister was entirely upon a memory of a shared childhood. Elsa didn't know Anna just as Anna didn't know Elsa. They were really simply remembering their youth and trying to pick up where they left off.
With that thought, Elsa plopped down at her desk and, propping her head up with her hand, began reading through various reports filed by her subjects.
…
"Whoo, Elsa, you wouldn't believe what me and Kristoff did today," Anna exclaimed, plopping down into her chair.
"It was insane! We went through the forest and found this really cool picnic spot. It was this large clearing with a field and lots of wildflowers and a hill. The hill was so perfect for picnicking. Me and Kristoff agreed that we should definitely have lunch there soon. And, man, this stuff is really good!" Anna incessantly babbled about her day, scooping a large bite of her tilapia into her mouth every few seconds.
Elsa tried her hardest to listen and stay objective, but it was a real struggle to stay attentive when her sister was gushing on about that son of a jackal. She absently poked at her own plate of fish with her fork.
"And I was like, 'No way, dude!' and he was like, 'Yes way!' It was so funny. You should've been there, Els, it was so much fun!" Anna enthused, stopping to chew on a bite of tilapia. Elsa suddenly froze a bit, glancing in Anna's direction.
Anna's last remark echoed in the older woman's mind. She swallowed a bit, eyeing the fish and feeling herself become sick at the prospect of actually eating it.
"Hey… Are you okay?" she heard Anna ask. Elsa nearly imperceptibly shook her head in negation of the inquiry, but quickly forced a small smile onto her face as she averted her gaze to her sister.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just… just not hungry. I- I think I've got a bit of a stomachache. I'm just going to go look at some things that I need to get done by tomorrow," Elsa smiled a toothy grin, trying to cover up the pain that she truly felt underneath her cheery exterior.
"Okay, I guess," Anna replied, eyeing her sister a bit strangely. Elsa raised herself from her seat at the head of the table and hurried out from the room, abandoning Anna in her wake.
In her haste, she didn't realize that she had completely forgone all manners that she normally followed in absolute and unwavering perfection. When it finally entered her mind that she hadn't done her usual routine, it was too late to turn back without invoking possibly more suspicion on Anna's part.
She heartbrokenly settled at her desk, allowing herself to gaze out the window nearby.
At the captivating sight of the night, she got up and wandered over to the window. Elsa looked to the sky and spotted the beauty and color of the Aurora Borealis over the mountainous scenery that enclosed the castle in a cove.
Elsa reached over and gently unlocked the window, lifting up on it so it would open. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the crisp, cool evening air. Elsa rested her hands on the windowsill, holding herself up so she could watch the dancing rainbow of colors.
She sighed quietly, reminiscent of the many nights she had been awakened for the sole purpose that the sky was "awake." Many times that very natural phenomenon was used as an excuse to coerce Elsa into getting out of bed, sneaking down the stairs, and playing in the ballroom.
Elsa, feeling a sudden dampness on her cheeks, reached up and wiped her face. To her surprise, she found tears that she didn't even know had escaped.
She looked down at the pale hands resting on the dullness of the aged white wood. She closed her eyes, feeling a pang of sadness reverberate through her frame. It was not a pleasant feeling. It made her insides twinge in a pain that could only be associated with deep sorrow.
Elsa glanced back at her work albeit begrudgingly. Whereas she did have work to do, Elsa may have stretched the truth a bit when she told her sister that it had to be completed by the next day.
However, it did need to be done soon, and she might as well get to work on it. Her sister would likely not ask her to play that night. Anna would probably crash onto her bed, immediately fall asleep, and have plenty of wonderful dreams with Kristoff as the main focus.
Elsa took one last look at the lights in the sky and whispered quietly.
"I love you, Anna."
...
"Hey, Elsa?" Anna asked, poking her head through the doorway. Elsa barely lifted her gaze in acknowledgement to the younger's presence.
"You can go with Kristoff," Elsa replied, automatically knowing exactly what she was sure her sister was going to say.
"Wait, what? That wasn't even- never mind. I came to ask you if something's wrong. You haven't been yourself lately and I was worried." Elsa sighed a bit, biting her lower lip. She really didn't feel like dealing with the situation at that moment. She came to the conclusion that there was no point since Anna would likely be thinking all about Kristoff for a long time.
Elsa despised admitting it but, even though she had no right to be, she was jealous. She tried desperately to dissuade herself of it, but she couldn't help herself. Just when she was finally getting her sister back, she was losing her to someone else completely.
She had mostly accepted that she would feel how she would feel and that there wasn't really any changing it. At least, until Anna and she discussed it. Which she did not plan on doing right now.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it," Elsa dismissed, internally pleading for Anna to drop it.
"You don't sound fine," Anna prodded a little more, stepping into the room.
Elsa was silent for a few minutes, hoping that maybe Anna would forget her whole purpose of being here. As if that'd ever happen. It'd be more likely for Elsa to evaporate in thin air than for Anna to forget something that was worrying her.
"Elsa, please talk to me," Anna begged, kneeling down beside Elsa's chair and putting her hand on the desk to support herself.
Elsa looked over at her sister, a sinking feeling settling in her gut. She'd end up telling Anna by the end of this conversation.
"What is there to talk about, Anna? Everything's as it should be," Elsa evaded, a heaviness in her voice that betrayed her comforting words.
"I'm happy because you're happy with our new life. With Olaf and Kristoff and the reindeer," she continued, trying to smile but failing miserably. She never could force fake emotion onto her face.
She watched Anna and she could see the gears turning through the younger's head. Elsa's eyes widened and she knew exactly where Anna was going.
"You've got a problem with Kristoff, don't you?!" Anna pointed at her, suddenly looking suspicious. Elsa sucked in a breath, desperately attempting to find a way out of the situation. She would really rather that Anna wasn't angry when they went over this subject. Of course she'd defend the male.
"Anna, I never said that. And besides, why would I have any sort of issue with him?" Elsa shot down Anna's accusation somewhat nervously.
"I don't know why you would, but you do!" Anna raised up from her position beside Elsa, looking indignant.
Elsa cowered a bit under the heat of her sister's gaze and averted her eyes to her desk as she arose from her seat.
"Anna, drop it," Elsa tried to put her foot down, "Please," but her good manners got the best of her and mostly ruined the effect.
"No, I won't drop it. What is your problem?!" Anna insisted with a fierce intensity that Elsa had seen rarely. Of course, they hadn't been reunited for very long.
"Anna, I don't want to talk about it," Elsa persisted.
"Why is it always about you? Why can't I ever be anyone's first priority? I'm always second best. You should be happy for me! I finally have true love like I've always wanted. What in the world is the problem with-"
"Stop!" Elsa finally burst. Anna flinched a bit, completely stopping her onslaught.
"It's always been about you, Anna. It's always about you," Elsa's voice wavered as she shut her eyes tightly in an attempt to stop rogue tears. "You're the first priority, you're everyone's first priority. I'm absolutely ecstatic that you have someone to be… romantically involved with," Elsa swallowed hard, choking a bit on the enormous lump forming in her throat.
"But do you know what my problem actually is?" Elsa questioned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Anna shake her head.
"I'm worried that my sister is replacing me with some man she met less than a week ago," Elsa said. She then shifted her bloodshot gaze up to Anna's.
"And get this, he's done more for her in two or three days than I have in nigh a lifetime. He takes better care of her than I ever could. And the most heart-shattering thing of all? I deserve it and I can't even accept my punishment." Elsa looked back down at the ground and made her way out of the room soundlessly.
Why did love have to hurt so badly?
…
Elsa went to the library: the only place that could take her mind off of things. She skimmed carefully through the numerous titles on the bookshelf.
Hamlet, a collective book with the entirety of Aurora Leigh, Gulliver's Travels, Anna's face…
"Anna?!" Elsa squeaked, completely taken aback. Anna looked at Elsa with a face that Elsa could only describe as frightfully apologetic.
"Elsa, we need to talk," Anna said softly. Elsa shook her head, picking Hamlet off of the shelf and turning away from her sister.
"There is nothing to talk about. I believe everything that needed to be said was stated earlier in my study," Elsa replied mechanically, almost as if reading a script. She settled on the couch and tried to find interest in the Shakespearian tragedy.
"Elsa, I didn't know you felt that way. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry," Anna apologized.
"I feel foolish for ever saying such a thing as that, and I would prefer not to speak of it again. Your happiness matters most to me," Elsa flicked through the book and stopped at her favorite scene in Act III.
"But your happiness matters most to me," Anna pushed further into the realm of a conversation that Elsa would rather avoid.
Elsa kept silent because she really didn't know what to say.
"I'm so sorry, Elsa. I can't have you thinking that I'm replacing you with Kristoff. I never should've decided to date him. Not if it was going to upset you this much." Elsa, in one swift movement, grabbed Anna tightly.
"Stop. You are not giving up what makes you happy for my sake," Elsa said, feeling a change in herself. She would push away every bit of negative emotion she held in herself for that mountain man, if it would make her sister happy. She couldn't let her own feelings keep Anna from happiness.
"But-"
"Anna, no. Now listen to me with both of your ears and half of your nose," Elsa tried to bring a little levity into the situation. To Elsa's relief, she could see a ghost of a smile grace Anna's features for just a moment.
"I love you and after all that's happened, I want you to be happy. Too many times in your life have you not gotten what you deserved. You had a sister that made you believe that she hated you, parents that were focused on hiding away the said sister's powers, and you basically always got, as you would say, 'the short end of the stick,'" Elsa continued genuinely, looking deeply into her younger sister's eyes.
"I'm tired of that, Anna. That's not what you deserve. You are my sister and you deserve the best in life. Now that I'm back in your life, I fully intend to give you everything that you could ever dream of. If that includes giving up my own selfish wishes along the way… Well, I'm more than willing to do so," Elsa confessed, feeling unwelcomed tears welling up in her eyes.
"Elsa… I don't know what to say."
"Who are you and what in the world have you done with my sister?" Elsa questioned playfully, sniffling a bit.
"Ha, ha, ha, very funny. But seriously, I think we should make it so that I get to spend time with you and Kristoff. Elsa, to tell you the truth, I've been missing you too."
"Really?" Elsa asked, trying to conceal the hopefulness in her voice.
"Of course. I love you more than anything, don't you know that?" Anna replied. Elsa allowed a watery smile to make its way on her face.
"I didn't want to tell you this, but I think you should know. The reason I've been spending so much time with Kristoff is because I've been a bit worried about driving you crazy," Anna said sheepishly, looking down at the ground in a self-deprecating manner.
"What?" Elsa inquired, inquisitiveness filling her every thought.
"I didn't want to push you past your comfort zone. I don't want to make you uncomfortable with my clinginess, so I tried to redirect it to someone else," Anna admitted. Elsa's eyes widened.
All this time her sister was trying to do what she thought was helping her? Anna really wasn't replacing her. She was really just being her usual ridiculously over-selfless and oversensitive self.
"Anna, Sunshine," Elsa pulled Anna close to her, burying her face into the younger's fiery orange tresses. She clung to her baby sister tightly, feeling a lump rising in her throat as her eyes grew watery. She threaded her fingers through the back of Anna's hair, the other hand holding Anna's waist.
She almost sobbed when she felt Anna reciprocate the embrace.
When she felt that she had a good enough hold on her emotions, Elsa pulled away to look into Anna's eyes.
"Anna, I don't want you to worry about that ever again. Do you understand me?" Elsa told her firmly, one hand on Anna's cheek and the other on her shoulder. Anna smiled, leaning into Elsa's hand and covering it with her own.
"All this time," Elsa searched her sister's face with a relieved, happy smile, "All this time, I've wanted to be with you. I would've given up everything and anything to do that. Anna, I've wanted our relationship to be like it used to be every day that I was in that room. Every day that you knocked on the door. Always, Anna. I've always wanted us to be together again." Elsa swallowed, feeling a little strange after unloading so many normally deeply hidden feelings.
"Me too, Elsa," Anna agreed.
"I'm never letting you go," Elsa said, placing both hands on Anna's face and resting her forehead against Anna's.
"I'm not going to let you go either, Elsa," Anna reassured. Elsa smiled relievedly as they stood there staring at each other for several long moments.
Suddenly, a thought popped into Elsa's mind that might could make them both feel better.
"So… You said that you found the best picnicking spot ever, huh?"
"Yeah, so?" Anna asked. Elsa grinned, pulling back and tucking a strand of hair behind Anna's ear.
"Do you think you could find it in your terribly, awfully busy schedule to show us to this picnic spot so we could maybe… I don't know… have a picnic tomorrow?" Elsa questioned, smiling lovingly when Anna's face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Really?!" Anna exclaimed, but catching herself, she went on to coolly say, "I mean, sure. I guess I could find some time to squeeze it in." She kept her poker face for just a moment before her face completely broke into the biggest grin Elsa had ever seen.
"I love you, Anna," Elsa expressed, feeling the familiar flutter of fondness and sisterly love fill her being.
"I love you too, Elsa."