I.

Ice crackled under Elsa's worn boots as she climbed over the mountains of iced debris. Blinding white flurries and roaring winds clawed at her limbs and threatened to push her down, blow her away, and rip her apart into a million particles, but she resisted. Her shawl billowing wildly around her shoulders, she rested briefly before gripping a protruding pole and pulling herself up another step. The temperature gradually dropped as the elevation increased, but Elsa only sweated from exertion. From where she was, she could see the peak if she looked up. With a deep breath, she proceeded to close the gap between herself and her imminent victory.

Moments later, Elsa stood with the soles of her boots firmly planted at the peak of the mountaintop. The surface was broad but sloped, and one wrong step could lead to her joining the lifeless carrion that formed the base of the mountain. All around, the air was thick with snowflakes, and yet there was a hollow clearness to it. Elsa brushed away the snowflakes on her eyelashes and squinted into the storm. Less than a quarter of a mile away were the skyscraping ruins of a forsaken district.

Bergis: that was the name Elsa's mother used to call this district. Most others called it the Waste because the surrounding land was where the deceased were discarded, creating mountains of frozen bodies including the one on which Elsa now stood. "Bergis" was a taboo word in the country of Arendelle for rumor had it that the district was cursed. For that, it was essentially cut apart from the rest of the world.

Elsa had learned about Bergis from her mother, who had emphasized to Elsa the importance of learning about one's roots, whether the government permitted it or not. A rebel since youth, Elsa had listened to the stories eagerly…

There had been a time in the past when Bergis was the most flourishing of the four districts that formed Arendelle. Each district was responsible for providing a service for the country, and because Bergis was located at the center of the circle of districts, it served as Arendelle's central trade market. Goods, people, and ideas flowed in and out of the district without rest, be it night or day, summer or winter. Bergis was prosperous and populous, and it kept the peace among the districts.

Then, near the end of a particularly warm winter eighteen years ago, snow began to lightly fall in Bergis. The residents of the districts thought the out-of-season weather was somewhat unusual (and for that, they called the phenomenon "the Frost"), but they didn't perceive anything very strange about it and went about their lives.

It wasn't until two weeks after the start of the snow – which by now falling much more heavily – that the city noticed that its vegetation was dying. In a month, the heavy precipitation became a howling, ceaseless storm of snow and hail, and the city's plants were no longer the only casualties. People were dropping dead in their homes and on the icy streets from a mysterious poisoning that slowly froze their blood. It did not take long for them to realize that the poisoning was a result from exposure to the enigmatic snow.

Bergis issued a mass evacuation into the surrounding districts immediately, and the central district was quickly deserted. One of the women who fled ran forty miles west into the district of Aunah while carrying a two-month old unborn child in her womb.

The Exodus of Bergis proved make difficulties in Arendelle. Over 100,000 people had been displaced, and they had taken refuge in the remaining districts – Aunah, Christoph, Hannes, and Ollaph – and nearly doubled the populations in each. Many of the refugees suffered deteriorating health and could do little to be useful. In the end, the districts placed them in slums and gave them menial jobs that payed so little that the people from Bergis always lived in poverty.

Months passed and summer came, and the storm enveloping Bergis continued to rage. The citizens of Arendelle concluded that the district was somehow cursed, and the once flourishing district was soon forgotten. Its surrounding lands which were still kissed by the snow were used as the dumping grounds of discarded belongings, decaying food, rotting corpses, or hazardous waste.

Months passed, and the impregnated woman, in an apartment the slums of Aunah, gave birth to a baby girl.

Elsa smiled slightly as she remembered what she would say whenever her mother reached that point in the story.

"And who was that little girl?" Elsa would always ask.

"That little girl – that miracle child – was you, Elsa," her mother would always reply with a gentle press of a finger on young Elsa's button nose. And Elsa would always laugh.

The smile vanished from Elsa's pink lips, and her nostalgia was replaced with sorrow. Eight years ago, the Frost had finally claimed her mother's life, for which her body had been viciously battling to save since the Exodus. At only ten years old, Elsa had been left an orphan, shunned by the citizens of Aunah and abandoned by the people living in the slums. Elsa was able to live by taking over her mother's old factory job, trying to live up to her wishes by being the good girl Elsa was always told to be. This life was boring and tedious, but the wage was enough to sustain her and she was somehow to make friends. At the time, she'd believed that she would be able to live a normal life.

That was until the past three years – a period when Elsa learned more about herself than she would have ever desired to know.

Elsa raised her hand and stared at her fingertips. Although she'd been out in the snow and cold for two days, they were still warm and pink, not cold and blue as they should have been. In fact, this much direct exposure to the Frost should have killed her hours ago, but her heart was still beating strongly. Elsa knew that the snow didn't affect her, and she knew that the snow would never affect her. Because of it, she'd had to commit a great sin that could not even be punishable by death. Death would not be nearly enough to compensate for the suffering she had caused.

Through the curtain of ice and snow, Elsa looked at the ruins of Bergis again. The scene before her was the embodiment of pure destruction, sorrow, abandonment, and lifelessness.

The world had forsaken Bergis just as Elsa had forsaken the world.

A soft laugh escaped through her lips, and soon the hesitant chuckles became unabashed howls of glee. Clutching her stomach, Elsa stooped over and cackled, feeling as if with each breath her body was being cleansed. It was the strangest sensation: here she stood before the ruins of the district her mother had once called home, Elsa's long platinum braid blowing wildly in the cursed snowy tempest that had cursed her and killed her mother, and yet, for the first time in her entire life, Elsa felt that she belonged here even though she'd never been here before. There was a sort of unearthly connection between the abandoned city and her that was forged before her birth. That connection now told her that she was free.

A strong gale slammed into Elsa and almost threw her off of the mountain. Her shawl loosened at her neck and was torn from her, and it threw itself wildly about and away into the whiteness. Elsa only laughed, hardly giving it a second thought. Such trivial things didn't matter anymore. The cold never bothered her anyway.