Winter was here.
For weeks, all of Arendelle had known it was coming. The thick heat that lay upon the tiny country like a blanket during the summer months had been gradually overtaken by the sharp, bitter, cold temperatures of autumn. Blue skies were eaten away by pewter-gray clouds. Leaves bled from emerald green to vermillion and saffron to caramel brown and finally fell, until all the trees were bare and their bare branches criss-crossed the gray sky like lace. But everyone knew that winter wasn't truly here until the land was covered in snow.
The first flurry of snowflakes had touched Arendelle nearly two weeks ago, at the end of October, covering the ground with patches of snow and ice here and there. Children had eagerly engaged in what would undoubtedly be the first snowball fights of many this season and quickly turned the pristine snow to muddy slush. Their initial joy having dissolved into disappointment, they waited restlessly for winter to grace the land with another shower of snow.
Crown Princess Elsa of Arendelle knew none of this, of course. She could have watched the world transforming as summer gave way to autumn and autumn to winter from her balcony, but she didn't. She rarely availed of the magnificent view from her balcony, because it was too painful to watch from afar the world she was no longer a part of. She had Anna's daily knocks to remind her of that. She didn't need any more pain to distract her from the eternal necessity to conceal and not feel.
But the first major snowstorm of winter was raging outside, the one that truly signified that summer was gone and heralded the arrival of winter, and Elsa stood on her balcony. Late in the afternoon, the winds had begun to pick up, and by evening, they were moaning and howling like wolves at full moon. It was nighttime now, and a veritable blizzard was raging. By morning, everything would be buried in several inches of snow.
Before she dashed outside, Elsa had peeled off her gloves and tossed them aside, because she didn't need them. For a short while, for a few blissful hours, she could give free reign to her powers, to the magic that begged to be released but she was forced to repress. At all other times, she had to be Crown Princess Elsa, the good girl who concealed and never felt, and she fulfilled the role that fate had ordained she must. She would do it, for Arendelle's sake, for her parents' wishes, for her own sake, but most of all, for Anna's sake.
But now, she could simply be Elsa- a girl who commanded forces of nature, who was the mistress of ice and snow, who used them and wasn't afraid of them. It was in these brief interludes, when no one else was around who could be hurt or be disgusted, that Elsa truly felt like the child she'd had to stop being at far too young an age. It was just her, and the wind, and the ice, and the snow.
In these moments, she could actually believe she was free.
Like a conductor signaling an orchestra to begin, Elsa threw out her arms and let her magic flow from her fingers, letting it mingle with the wind and the swirling natural snow until everything around her was a blinding blur of white. The sheer strength of her blast and the realization of how much power she held within her would have normally terrified her, but there was no reason to be ashamed or worried here. She was alone, and she was free.
Her braid danced around her and her dress flapped wildly, but she barely noticed. On an impulse, Elsa unwound her braid and let the blonde strands of her long hair fly loose around her. A wild grin unfurled across her face, so different from the blank expression that she customarily donned. How good it felt to let her internal tempest bleed into the real one, and to let her powers go, until she no longer knew the difference between herself or her powers or the snow, and she was one with the storm.
She should have been shivering by this point, but her powers left her immune to the cold. Usually, she hated her imperviousness to temperature- yet another oddity she was cursed with. But for now, it served her well.
Elsa lost count of how many times she lifted her arms and shot out snow into the storm. With each blast of snow that she set free, she felt as though the anxiety and the guilt and the worry that she carried was also set free. Time soon lost all meaning. There was no need to be constrained by limits when she was here, in the midst of winter and in her element. She could have lived like this forever.
But the storm did eventually die down. The speed of the winds dropped back down to normal, the snow stopped swirling and eventually disappeared, and the storm ended. Elsa released her final burst of ice and dropped her arms to her sides, panting. She remained standing at the railing for a few more moments, and then returned indoors, swaying a little.
Once she was inside, Elsa slid down to the ground against the wall, breathing heavily and hugging herself. She was utterly tired, but it was not the kind of exhaustion that she usually had to contend with- the weariness that hung on the edge of her consciousness at all hours, sleeping and waking, that tugged at her soul, barely perceptible but staggeringly heavy at the same time. This was the tired but satisfied exhaustion of a job well done, the kind of faintly pleasant fatigue that filled every pore of her body and reverberated in her bones.
And yet, as she climbed out of her soaked dress and changed into a clean nightgown, as she slipped her gloves back onto her hands and climbed into bed, her heart felt unbelievably light. She huddled under the covers and listened to the now-subdued sighs of the wind, her body wonderfully free of the tingling that her power usually assaulted it with. As she closed her eyes and fell asleep, Elsa could almost swear that, for the first time in forever, she just might be happy.
Winter was here. And maybe, for a little while, Elsa could be happy.