Hi guys! This is a short fluffy imagined glimpse into a friendship between Elsa and Loki, if it were to happen! Prompted by my lovely friend MarvelousTune, who loves Frozen. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
It was a bitterly cold night, but then again, that had never bothered Elsa. The petite girl's hair shone in the moonlight as she stole along a pathway behind the palace, the ivory shade either a cruel irony or symbolic of her gifts. Craning to look behind and make certain no one was following, she pulled the hood of her royal blue cloak over her hair, walking further into the trees.
It was the middle of the night, and she'd judged it safe enough to leave the palace, for surely her parents and sister Anna, and the majority of the guards, were sleeping in their beds, as she should be. But she was restless tonight; the powers of the thirteen year-old were growing, and the cold was a constant force swirling inside her. It thrummed along her veins and in her bones like a tangible force, and perhaps it was. Perhaps it was as bored as she, locked up in her as she was locked in her room so often. Perhaps it longed to escape as well, and so she had started this habit of sneaking out at night, when temperatures were at their lowest, and a little frost would not go amiss.
And she created a world all her own. Frost would spread along the boughs of low-hanging trees like icing on a cake of her own design, crystals freezing into shapes of familiar faces and objects as she walked. Letting go, relinquishing control of the cold, always made her feel that much more in control, and she loved it. It was always a disappointment to have to return to the real world, to tread that familiar path back to the palace and lock herself and the ice away until next time.
One time, she met someone, out on the cold trails of Arendelle. She had wondered far this time, almost to the borders of Asgard, a neighboring kingdom where magic was more widely accepted.
Lost in her thoughts, Elsa almost missed the cracking of frozen twigs under a tread much heavier than hers, and she darted behind an ice-glazed shrub just in time to see a young man step into the moonlight. He was obviously Asgardian, wearing a complicated ensemble accented with leather straps and gold fastenings, but the armor seemed to engulf his slight form. He looked young, about her age, and as miserable as she often felt. Dark hair fell into his downcast eyes as he scuffed through the frosty grass, his breath billowing into clouds near his lips, but he didn't seem to notice, or mind.
A hand clapped over her mouth to keep herself quiet, Elsa started to edge backwards, cautious of the foreign boy who was out at this odd time of night (but was she not? A quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered), and promptly snapped a branch with one booted foot. His head whipped up, eyes searching the darkness for the intruder upon his reverie, and a small squeak slipped past her lips, changing to a cloud as his own breath did.
Clamping her eyes shut, Elsa took a deep breath, and stepped into the moonlight herself. The boy promptly relaxed upon seeing her, a pale, tiny girl a foot shorter than him, and his entire body slumped anew, as if more than his armor weighed upon his shoulders.
"Who are you?" He asked, tone more curious than suspicious.
"Who are you?" Elsa returned, voice quieter than she'd like it to be. Clearing her throat, she continued. "You don't look like you're from Arendelle."
"Oh, have I wandered that far?" The boy responded, brows raised in bewilderment. "I had no idea…I am Loki, of Asgard. I won't hurt you, I merely needed…A respite."
"Under the moonlight?" She teased, lips turning up at the corners, and he responded with a small smile of his own. "I'm Elsa, from, well, Arendelle. Nice to meet you, but aren't you cold?"
The boy shifted, eyes skimming down the elaborate fabric covering his arms. "No, these garments are well-woven, and the cold has never bothered me much."
Elsa grinned wider. "Same here. Sometimes I just need to get away, too." She gestured to a fallen log nearby, skipping to it and plopping herself down, and Loki followed, cautiously lowering himself to the wood a few feet down its length from her. Elsa was so short that her feet dangled, not reaching the ground, and the much-taller Loki laughed at that.
"I don't get out much," Elsa offered, eyes on her boots as well. "I wonder if it's stunted me?" Her tone was so concerned that Loki snorted, and she shot him a glare.
"I have to get out much," he responded, voice suddenly very soft. "My…brother and his friends, they tease me often. Bait me into sparring matches and such, when I'd much prefer to read a book or practice my spells."
"Spells?" Elsa's ears perked at that, and her feet swung more eagerly as she swiveled herself on the log to face him more directly. "You have…magic?"
"A bit, so far," he admitted, nodding. "My mother is very skilled in the studies of magic, and she teaches me what she can, when she can. I know but a few simply enchantments so far." At a wave of his hand, two more Lokis appeared in front of them, each waving at Elsa before dissolving into a green gleam that dissipated in the moonlight. Elsa gasped with excitement, clapping her hands before she remembered herself and regained some of the "ladylike" composure that had been instilled by her own mother.
"I have magic too," she mumbled, nearly incoherently, and Loki leaned in closer. "What was that?"
"I have some…too, but I can't…Well, I can't control it so well." She pointed at a patch of grass in front of them, and instead, a tree a few paces away froze over, white frost encompassing it completely within ten seconds. "See?" Her own shoulders slumped, and Loki reached over to pat her hand comfortingly, quickly withdrawing his hand when she flinched at the contact.
"Sorry," he muttered, twisting his hands together in his lap. "No, it's okay!" Elsa rushed to explain, waggling her hands in the air in front of him. "I just, sometimes I give my parents…frostbite…I have to wear these all the time," she said, proffering the gloves she pulled from a pocket of her skirts.
"At least they're stylish," Loki said with a grin, gesturing at his own garments. "You could have to sport this all the time." She giggled, seeing his point, and glad she didn't have to manage all those buckles at bedtime.
They started scheduling meetings for that same clearing, the same night each week, each working on their abilities with the other's encouragement and help. They became each other's best friends, lifelines, support group in the form of a single individual, and it helped, immensely. Elsa's powers continued to strength and at times remained unpredictable and uncontrollable, but Loki could be a surprisingly good sport about things like being frozen to the spot he stood on for an hour before she could reverse the spell.
Years passed, the two of them proving as tumultuous as adolescents can be, with their powers. But they were effective counterweights for each other, Elsa pulling Loki out of his funks, he joking with her until she laughed and the ice stopped creeping across the ground around her.
Then one day, Loki wasn't there. Or the next, or the next. Elsa would wait and wait for her friend to show up, but he didn't, not ever again. And then her parents died, the combined grief crashing down on her like a tidal wave that kept her closeted in her room even more than before. She took perhaps one meal a day, doing nothing to help her sister Anna's grief either.
There were still a couple of years to go until Elsa would come of age and take the throne, but she refused the schooling that palace counselors and staff offered. Only her trusted maid could come and go from her room, bringing etiquette books and news from the other staff. Else shaped herself into a promising queen all on her own, a better one than anyone on the outside could have imagined.
Her best friend, however, underwent some unfortunate changes of his own, as Arendelle soon heard. News of Asgard's foiled coronation of Loki's brother, and subsequent threats of war with Jotunheim, another neighboring kingdom, worried Elsa. She had assumed responsibilities or such had pried Loki's company from her, but then rumors began to spread, that Loki had orchestrated an assassination attempt on his father, that he had falsely claimed the throne, that he had his own brother banished.
Elsa feared the worst, but coronation time arrived for she herself, and her own complicated life grew even more so, if that had been possible.
Honestly, she didn't know why she had to remove her gloves to claim the throne and its scepter – she wasn't attempting disrespectfulness, really – but she obeyed the counselor, relinquishing her gauntlets and her control in one move. She was now Queen of Arendelle, but at what price to her peace of mind?
And then her sister had to get the silly notion to label herself engaged, to a man she'd met at the coronation celebration a few short hours before…The rest was history, as they say, and Elsa never spoke much of the time following her coronation until the kingdom was once again thawed and recognizing seasons regularly.
She now knew that love was the key to controlling her abilities, and that her sister's perseverance and affection had let it all happen. Elsa let her do nearly anything she wanted, and would even leave Anna in charge when she left for brief sojourns to the mountains to let her powers reign free again. She could do so in Arendelle, but she still tended to avoid too many public displays of her icy tendencies.
One day, perusing one of their old mutual haunts, Elsa found Loki again. They were both older, but he looked much the worse for wear, his hair long and whipping wildly in the wind, his eyes holding an eerie blankness that she didn't like the look of. She came across him sitting on a fallen log, staring into space; his armor was torn, and he was muttering to himself. He did not look good, and she approached cautiously, throwing back the hood of her velvet cloak. "Loki?"
He started at the sound of her voice, brilliant green eyes slowly coming to rest on her face. It seemed to take him a moment, but then he spoke in recognition. "Elsa." His voice was flat, and she shivered involuntarily, not from the cold.
"Are you alright?" She asked, pacing closer, brows furrowing in concern. "What are you doing here, my old friend?"
"I am nothing," he mused aloud, not quite answering her but twirling a finger and making some green sparks appear in the air in front of him. "I am not a king, not a brother to a king, not in line for any throne…"
"Life is not all about ruling. And thrones are overrated, if you ask me." Elsa's tone was crisp as she swept her skirts under her, seating herself beside him on the log. "Much more trouble than they're worth." He didn't respond, so she kept talking. "You think you'll be free, that you'll be the one to tell everyone what to do, that you'll make decisions and do anything you want, but it isn't like that at all. Your actions must all be answered for, you hold the fate of so many in your hands, and their weight on your shoulders. You're watched, you're followed, you must be strong at all times." She fell quiet, removing her silk gloves and bunching them up in her fists.
"I thought I understood ruling." His voice was quiet. "I thought with my powers, my combat training, all the encouragement instilled in me since my youth…I thought I could do it."
Elsa had heard the entire upsetting tale of his actions, both in Asgard and Midgard, but she still remembered the innocent young boy who'd wandered into the woods to practice magic and escape bullies. Scooting closer, she laid a pale, slender hand on the worn armor of his shoulder, and the other upon the hand laying limply across his lap. "You are capable of great things, my friend, and ruling is not the only great accomplishment this world has to offer."
She couldn't undo what he had done, and neither could he, but she could be supportive now, and hopefully push her once-best friend in a better direction, so she kept talking. "You are one of the most skilled magic practitioners I have ever met, and I've met many by now. You can help others, you can help your kingdom and other realms. And your heritage-" he flinched at the word, but she kept going, still- "You are much more similar to me than we ever knew! I relish the thought of someone with similar abilities!"
Loki's hand finally turned on his lap, fingers curling around hers in a fierce grip. "You would still fraternize with a known killer and maniac?"
"I don't believe that's what you are. Our actions are not us, no matter what anyone says. We all make mistakes, Loki." She clenched her fingers into the armor over his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "How about a little vacation?"
He looked up at her, green eyes questioning, and she smiled. "You haven't been further than this into Arendelle, have you?" He shook his head, frowning. "Well, you're coming with me now. You can meet my sister, who has been so supportive of my abilities, since we were children, really, and maybe you'll gain some perspective. I know Thor would like his brother back…" Elsa's smaller frame was already hauling Loki down the pathway she'd come down, and he came along without resistance. Her gloves were off, and nary a glimpse of frost was in sight.