Prologue
In a small town nestled into a cozy little bay, a fjord as such places were called in this part of the world, an old stone castle stood resilient against the never-ceasing pounding of the ocean's waves, stalwartly protecting the harbor even as the stones were slowly ground to sand. But the ocean can be as patient as it is treacherous, and so the inhabitants paid the slow erosion no mind, for their were always more immediate concerns, such as the young girl who had locked herself into the wine cellar and was refusing now to come out.
Most young girls would never even think of locking themselves into a dark and windowless room, nevermind that she was sorely vexing her nursemaid, who had been obliged to bring the girl's mother into the whole affair. Now the two, mother and daughter, were seated on opposite sides of the door, and the young girl listened to all of the rather excellent reasons she should unlock the door and come out before her father became involved and had to order the castle guards to remove the door.
It was a very bright midsummer's day outside, however, and young Elsa felt ever so convinced that if she spent even a single more minute in the bright light, she would surely burn away. Here in the darkness, with nothing but a sliver of light creeping in through the same crack beneath the door which allowed her to hear her mother's voice, her eyes suffered no pain at all and she could easily make out the lettering on the wine bottles and great wooden casks stored throughout the cellar. She wasn't a particularly good reader and couldn't quite piece together more than a few of the words, but she was still only five and fairly certain most of the words were in other languages she would not even begin learning for several more years.
"Please don't be silly, Elsa," her mother spoke with a soft voice, calm and comforting and quite difficult to disobey. "Nobody has ever burned to ashes and cinders simply because of the sun, and I am quite sure you shan't be the first to reverse all of recorded history."
It would be so much easier for Elsa to believe her mother and be comforted if she didn't know better. She had heard her mother and father whispering in hushed tones behind closed doors, secretly discussing a terrible curse upon the family and what might befall her and her baby sister. They had discussed her aunt, who might have died in childbirth if not for a magical flower, and how her cousin had then been stolen away, the abduction blamed on the same fey enchantress who had cursed the family line. In such a world as her parents tried to keep hidden from her, how could it be impossible for Elsa to burn away under the harsh gaze of the sun?
Idunn sighed and let the silence stretch when her daughter failed to even respond. She ought to be overseeing preparations for a ball to be held the next day, celebrating one hundred years of peace with their closest trading partner, but perhaps Elsa had only grown so imaginative and unruly because they never spent enough time together. She had never intended to leave her children so heavily in the care of others, but Gerda was such a good nursemaid and a queen's duties are endless, such that it had become frighteningly easy to never see her girls except at meals.
"Well then, if you insist that you shall surely burn away, then we must protect you from the sun as if you were a snowflake, but you must still come out. You are still a princess, Elsa, and a princess should know better than to lock herself into the wine cellar, especially when she has no cheese or chocolates to snack upon." The soft gasp from the other side of the door brought a smile to Idunn's face and she continued, "We shall cover up your window with heavy velvet curtains, and you shan't need to continue your riding lessons outside except when the moon is full and bright on cloudless evenings, but first…"
Elsa waited with bated breath for her mother to give the condition on which she would be believed, her small hand already wrapped around the iron key she had pilfered, but impatience got the better of her, "But what, mama? I'll come out, really I will, if you won't make me go out in the sun again, but what is first?" She knew her mother was still there, could hear every breath and heartbeat, the second being the most comforting sound in the world and might have put her to sleep if she was at all tired, but her mother did not respond. Frustrated, Elsa thrust the key into the lock and turned it, only to quickly be snatched up into a warm embrace, hugged by her mother.
"Caught you!" Idunn smiled and squeezed comfortingly, holding her daughter close, even as Elsa struggled and squirmed and demanded that she had promised. "I did promise, and a queen keeps her promises, just as a princess ought to. But I was busy thinking about my conditions, and now you have agreed to my conditions without even hearing them. Very unbecoming and quite dangerous. What if I were to say that you could have no desserts while you remain hidden from the sun?"
Elsa was clearly shocked and dismayed, her expressions showing so clearly that even a decade of lessons might not teach her to hide them, but she swallowed and replied, "Then I would have no desserts, even if I hadn't already promised." Then, as an afterthought, she admitted guiltily, "Not even the bonbon I stole from the kitchens and hid in my dollhouse to share with Anna, only please don't take her desserts away too!"
"You mustn't steal, Elsa. What if one of the servants were blamed and punished?" Idunn hugged extra tight and patted Elsa's back comfortingly, her own heart warmed that her eldest cared so much for her baby sister, "I might have to ban desserts for you for a week anyway, but that was not the condition I had in mind. You were supposed to be having lessons rather than hiding in the dark, so my condition is science lessons."
This was a brand new word, and curiosity was ever a powerful motivator for Elsa, quickly banishing her dismay at losing desserts for a whole week, which might as well be forever. She rolled the unfamiliar syllables back and forth across her tongue as if tasting them, then carefully pronounced them back to her mother as a question.
"Yes, science. Natural philosophy. It is how we learn the way the world works. Answers for why the sky is blue, or how it is that ships float in the ocean. Today however, we shall conduct an experiment!" Idunn loosened her hold on Elsa, setting the young girl in her lap as she explained, "An experiment is how one performs science, it is sort of like casting a spell to do magic, only anyone can do it if they know all the rules."
Elsa listened attentively as her mother explained all of the rules, naming all sorts of complicated words like 'hypothesis' that were difficult for her to repeat, taking time then to explain those words as well. Another child might have lost interest, but Elsa enjoyed sounding out each new word and asking her mother questions about them, and unlike with her tutors, her mother did not make her spell the strange new words. Especially good because Elsa suspected that these were the sort of words with funny spellings, or letters with curlicues underneath or extra marks on top.
"Well then, today we shall conduct an experiment to see just how dangerous sunlight is for you, okay?" Idunn pulled her daughter in close for a hug as she felt her stiffening with fear, adding in her most comforting tone, "I won't let you get hurt, and if you say it hurts at all we'll stop, but what if Anna comes toddling into your room and pulls the blinds away and you light up like a little candle, hmm? We need to know just how careful to be to keep you nice and safe, and the best way to find out is an experiment!"
This didn't sound like a particularly good idea to Elsa, and she had a sneaking suspicion that this was going to hurt at least as much as the time she grabbed the iron poker that had been resting in the fireplace without putting a glove on first, but she nodded all the same and let her mother lead her up the stairs into the castle proper. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, and her mother stepped out into the hallway and said that there was no direct sunlight there, which Elsa knew, and she stepped forward, and sure enough it was very much okay and not at all painful. Around the corner, however, there were several windows, and the sun was shining on that side of the castle, and it was far too much for Elsa to even step into the corridor.
Idunn patted her daughter reassuringly on the head and strode into the sunlit corridor, reaching for the cords to the thick curtains bracketing each window and drew them closed, so that only a narrow slit of light could penetrate the thick cloth. She then beckoned for Elsa, who seemed much more comfortable now in the dim light, but paused when she say a narrow band of light across the floor, refusing to take another step. "It's just a little bit of light, surely it cannot hurt you." She stepped back and forth across the patch of lit carpeting herself, then held out her hand for Elsa.
The pain was immediate, and even in the dim light the redness on her arm and the smoke rising from it were easy to see, but her mother was quick to pull Elsa away from the light and back around the corner to safety, away from the windows. The balm Gerda brought did little to help, and the chocolate was good, but did not settle her stomach nearly so much as her mother holding her close and reading her stories by candlelight while servants painted over the windows to make sure no light could ever burn Elsa again.