Neither Frozen nor its characters belong to me. This is just a dark musing I had a couple months ago that never left me alone, so I'm posting it. Enjoy, maybe review. Don't kill me in my sleep. The usual.
-Daka
They were never entirely who they pretended to be. Yes, Elsa was poised and dignified, as befitted a queen, but there was so much kept hidden behind her glacial eyes. The calm and collected demeanor was a façade built to hide the quaking of her hands and the fear in her heart. Few knew this, even after her magical winter and the numerous celebrations that followed. Truly, the only person to ever know and accept everything she was had been her sister. Despite Anna's claims, Elsa considered it to be a rather dubious honor. To her, the real honor was to know who Anna really was. Of course she was awkward and adventurous, as anyone who had even vaguely heard of the princess would agree. She was considered to be Arendelle's most precious bane, a belief shared in taverns and homes through fondly told stories and roaring laughter. Some nights, she would hear her sister's voice echoing in her head as she laid herself bare to the relocated painting of Joan d'Arc. She would listen to dynamic recounts of the younger girl's days with a soft smile, wishing she'd been there or reminding herself to compensate for miscellaneous damages left in the princess's wake. Other times, a frown would grace her features as she watched her train to become the perfect fighter, reciting private vows to never be weak, to never be fooled, and to never allow her queen a reason for fear. She'd known already that Anna had been behind many disappearing weapons during their youth, from various swords to a series of bows increasing in strength and an accompanying legion of arrows. She also assumed that Anna had practiced with each, though she had never caught more than a handful of glimpses of an armed Anna, all of which occurred late at night before rumors were heard of yet another theft. Keeping up with the girl's growing stash was dizzying for Elsa, who admittedly had to do a bit of research before realizing that a bastard sword and a long sword actually were different and that the ungodly beast the girl had literally dragged behind her one spring had been called a claymore. It was sweet that the redhead was so keen to protect her sister, but Elsa could sometimes see her shaking from exhaustion after practicing drills. There had been nights that Anna had to be carried to bed because her legs would not support her.
The worst nights for the blonde, however rare, were when she would find herself the silent audience of what she knew to be the darkest secret of Arendelle, even more than her powers had ever been. The young princess had this unquenchable fire in her soul that made her beloved to her kingdom and her queen, but it was only Elsa who was privy to just what stoked those flames. Late in the night, she would follow glimpses of red hair into the deepest bowels of the castle. It was in these remote corridors that she finally saw her sister let herself go. The first few times were terrifying and had haunted her for days. It had taken time for her to watch again. To bear witness to such gruesome sights...
It was on one such night that Anna called her from the shadows, simply stating that she shouldn't allow her queen to have such a terrible view if Elsa insisted on following her every time. Making a simple chair of ice, the queen hesitantly sat closer to what had only recently been a living nightmare. She tried to ignore the crimson stains that were smeared across Anna's body, instead pretending that there was nothing at all hiding the girl's breeches from her eyes. In her mind, they were a dark tan, not some mottled reddish brown. Even she, in all her years of seclusion, had seen the clothes of a man returning from a hunt. Garments with faded remnants of deer and rabbit and elk, still present after desperate washing, had distinct parallels that she refused to tie to her sister's own apparel. She was relieved that the shirt was black and would allow no other color to mark its fabric; it was horrible enough that the princess's hands bore the sticky substance. Even her face glistened in the candlelight as she bowed to her queen with a lighthearted grin. The redhead danced over to a small iron cabinet, plucking an ice pick from the top shelf and presenting it to Elsa for approval. She was met with an unsteady breath and, after a moment, a sharp nod. The screams were deafening as the pick's handle was rocked to and fro, blood oozing across the chamber floor to join the countless layers beneath. When the man was reduced to a whimpering mess, Anna finally left him to peruse her tools.
There was a rather morbid beauty to the princess's movements, whether one approved of her actions or not. The way her fingers glided across a wide variety of instruments bespoke of cruel familiarity and her eyes carried a satisfied gleam when she narrowed her choices down to two. A razor-thin wire was coiled around the fingers of one hand while the other balanced a small handsaw. After a moment's hesitation, Elsa was shocked to find them being proffered to her for the final decision, the younger girl's gaze lowered in deference and a light flush across her cheeks. The young sorceress had grown accustomed to this treatment since her coronation, but she'd never expected her sister in this pose or situation. She'd never wanted it. Reaching for Anna's hands, she smothered the urge to shudder when her fingers met blood-soaked skin and brought them to her lips, adamantly ignoring everything in favor of the delight that lit her sister's eyes.
She tried not to watch too closely to what followed, but the stone still turned to ice below her feet when a perforated tongue was torn free and thrown into a brazier standing in the corner. Fingers soon joined it, each bone separated from the next with slow precision. Her inaction was appalling, she knew, but still the queen stayed seated as Anna went back with a glowing poker and sealed the wounds. The scent was suffocating, and she was horrified to realize that it wasn't because of its source. Gods, she should have run as fast as she could. She should have been screaming for the guards, but she never did. She remained as her sister circled the bound figure when he finally went limp against his restraints. She couldn't even bring herself to respond when the younger girl sighed, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent room. Skin was rinsed in a small basin and clothes discarded for a simple nightgown and robe. Elsa found that transition to be jarring after all that she'd witnessed, but she didn't hesitate for an instant when Anna held out a hand. She was ashamed to realize she was just as relaxed as she always was when her sister touched her, perhaps even more so, and that she was asleep the moment freckled arms wrapped around her waist.
She supposed she stayed for the same reason that everyone was drawn to the redhead, only the fire was stronger now, blinding and scorching in its intensity. Anna saw the whole world from her seat in the shadows. She knew what darkness was. It lived inside her, it was her, and it was pitch black. To her, Elsa realized, the world was always bright because there was so little that could compare to what she kept secret. Anna didn't fear the world. She had no need. She knew the world should fear her and that assurance set her free. As for Elsa, she hated herself for feeling safer with the knowledge that all of the cruelty her sister possessed, groomed and nurtured beneath their own home, was devoted to her.
Maybe they were both sick.