It was the coldest part of the castle, where Elsa found Anna, the younger girl's eyes still puffy and bloodshot.
Kristoff coming to visit had always excited Anna, had always lit up Anna's eyes with an enthusiasm the queen hadn't seen since they were children. Anna may have been Elsa's act of true love, but Kristoff was Anna's world, her life, her everything.
Elsa wanted to hate Kristoff with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't. Not now, not with Anna right there, sitting stiffly, trying to put on a brave face for the sake of the sister who shut her out for thirteen years. She calmly took a seat besides Anna, the sister who didn't deserve to have her heart shattered, and took her right hand into her own.
They sat in silence for a good while, even as Elsa felt Anna grow colder, and as the light dimmed from the setting sun outside. Finally, Anna spoke a single word.
"Carrots."
Elsa could do nothing but squeeze her hand as Anna's tears started fresh. She had heard of Kristoff's habit of sharing the vegetable with Sven, but she had no idea why Anna would bring it up now, in such a place.
Anna answered for her, though. "It was the first thing he ever said to me, back at Oaken's, when we met. Not flattery, not an insult, just… telling me to move, so he could get carrots. For Sven. If it wasn't for Oaken charging too much, I never would have bought them, and bribed him into helping me find you."
Another wave of tears hit Anna, and this time all Elsa could do was hold her as the red-haired princess cried into her shoulder. Awkwardly, Elsa smoothed down Anna's hair, unsure of what to say. Kristoff was Anna's, Anna knew the ice harvester better than the queen had ever known anyone outside of their family. Elsa had lost nothing. Anna…
It took some time before Anna had calmed down again. Grief was an odd force, powerful and unpredictable. All Elsa wanted to do right now was to change the past, to go back and find a way to keep Kristoff in Arendelle just a little longer, so that maybe things would be different.
Maybe she wouldn't be watching, helpless, as Anna stroked back blond hair from the face of a corpse.
Elsa bit her lip as she watched her sister touch Kristoff's face for the last time. "I asked him not to go," she said simply. "Ice was his life. One last trip, he said. One last one, and he'd be done for the season."
The queen had read the report, before news got to Anna. They were far out on the lake, on thin ice. Kristoff had fallen though, and slipped under an ice sheet. By the time his fellow ice harvesters had gotten him out, he wasn't breathing, and he had already begun to turn blue. He was dead before they could get him to fire.
He was dead before returning to Anna.
"You promised you'd come back," Anna said quietly. "You gave me your word, and I believed you. You were the first person to ever come back to me, for me. Of course I…"
Of course she believed him.
Elsa finally stood up. The sun had long since set, the only light from the room coming from the small fire in the fireplace that was only lit because the queen had made a mention of Anna's fondness to the ice harvester to Kai and Gerda, the moment his body was carried into the castle. "Anna, you need to rest."
Between choked back sobs, Anna leaned forward and lightly kissed Kristoff on the brow. "I can't," the princess whispered. "My valiant… pungent… reindeer king."
Instead of arguing, Elsa quietly moved to where they kept the spare blankets. Finding the warmest one she could, Elsa draped it over Anna's slim shoulders without another word.
Anna nodded silently, and Elsa all but fled the room, closing the door behind her. The older sister was powerless to stop Anna's pain. If she could but take her place…
Anna would never let her, not like this. Anna would say that she deserved to be happy, to fall in love, to get married, to have children, to grow old together. Even if Elsa could have taken her place, Anna would have refused her at every turn.
Elsa kept her line of thought for the next hour, pacing outside the damnable door of the guest bedroom where her sister sad with her ice harvester, alone and in pain. The queen waved away her own supper, but took a small bowl of soup for Anna, even though she knew the younger girl would refuse. She opened the door slowly, and closed it softly, as she carried the meal neither girl would touch into the room. One look at Anna, and the bowl was on a dresser as Elsa moved to cover Anna with the blanket, again.
Anna had curled up against Kristoff, her mess of red hair on his shoulder, her right hand on his chest, knees bent, the blanket forgotten on the floor.
Picking up the blanket wasn't hard. Covering Anna with it for the second time in almost as many hours wasn't hard. Leaving Anna to sleep wasn't that hard.
Leaving Anna with her valiant, pungent reindeer king for the last time tore at her heart, and ripped at her soul.
A/N: Removed for reasons, reposted for other reasons. Feedback appreciated.