Hello hello and welcome to another Frozen fanfiction! Before you read ahead I would like to state that, despite the slow start, things could potentially pick up quickly and I cannot guarantee it will be completely trigger-free the whole way through. At this stage, though, the story is relatively low-key and ship-free. This could also change.
Anyways, enjoy, and remember that none of the characters are mine.
Ordinary is Anna. Stuttering, loud, obnoxious, and speaks-before-she-can-think is she.
Anna is often taken for a fool. But she's no fool, and even Kristoff thinks so, and Kristoff is pretty emotionally dense for someone so sensitive. No, she's no fool, but words escape her far too many times to be normal and her tongue fumbles its way around syllables as she speaks. Her eyes look at words without reading, causing her to read and re-read passages over, forcing out short sharp words like a gatling gun which can't ever hit its target if it tries. And the tip of her tongue has never quite reached the roof of her mouth, so there is always air escaping and lisping like a grade-schooler snake.
Kristoff says her voice is lovely, when she speaks; Anna only wishes that her ramblings were comprehensible enough for everyone else to understand. Understand without thinking twice over it, or biting their lips in muffled laughter, or sighing whenever she was picked to read out to the class because gods, she was the worst person to have to suffer through a reading or two.
Anna can't help it, of course. She is, deep down, and also quite close to the surface, and basically all the way through, a bubbly, sociable, amiable and likeable girl. And so energetic! She loves talking and talking but not particularly in front of anyone except for maybe Kristoff and sometimes her mum and mostly her little cousin Olaf, because he stutters too and it's only adorable when you're five.
When you're sixteen it's a little different. And a little wrong.
Don't get her wrong – Anna loves herself and life. She's not ever been bullied. It's nothing ever that serious. But there is enough there to clearly say she is not like everyone else and it is way too awfully clear that conformity equals happiness in a world where communication is everything. Anna can feel lost friendships and misunderstandings, just because she trips over a word by accident and it feels almost insincere, or perhaps she is trying too hard to just speak and let it flow that she sounds rehearsed and automated. So as likeable as she is, with this mindset, she is doomed to a life of vague detachment and almost-isolation where she hardly picks up the phone and instead prefers to text. She doesn't go out much because Kristoff doesn't go out much, and walking around town by yourself gets depressing far too easily.
On top of that, Anna is the least coordinated person to exist on this side of the globe, though it was possible she claimed that title for the other half, too. Sometimes she would be trying to walk in a straight line and trip over nothing or suddenly veer and hit into someone-
Her mouth opens a little, stutters, and she packs away whatever she was going to say before it tumbles out in a great gush of unfiltered and disorganised rubbish. She reaches out, so stuck in thought that she had caused another accident in the hallway again.
"I'm… sa-sorry…"
Of course, the girl has already moved on, and Anna is left standing there alone, not even with Kristoff because this year they've been separated for the first time. So she bends down to pick up her lost books, surprised at how far they seem to have gone, almost as if they flew out of her hands with the intent of causing the most amount of trouble possible.
"Here."
It's a voice, and one that Anna doesn't ever recall having heard before. Smooth, mature, pale with light blonde hair and probably a little bit taller than herself, and holding out a few of Anna's books which managed to escape her grasp. Wait. That is the person behind the voice. Not the voice itself. But the voice is very lovely, regardless. Not in a creepy way. Though, it could be taken as creepy considering Anna is just standing gawking, awkwardly, at this stranger who is, judging by the abundance of badges pinned to her lapel, her senior by at least a year.
"Are you alright?"
Anna has taken back her books before the stranger has even finished her question. There's a long, awkward pause, and every time Anna feels the need to say something, she figures it would be too late anyway and the blonde would just turn around and leave. She doesn't, and they stand together, fiddling the hems of their sleeves or their books in silence.
"Uh, I better go…" the stranger says at length, and it manages to reach Anna's cloudy mind and she nods, a bit too vigorously, perhaps, as she steps aside and watches the other girl's retreating back until she rounds a corner.
The fogginess that comes with waking early dissipates like mist in the sun soon after class starts. Anna doesn't talk to anyone, but she does wave, a little bit self-consciously, as always. At least someone waves back. That's a good sign. But, unfortunately, there is not a face in the room Anna knows by anything more than name. So she sits, alone, as she often does, just waiting for the day to go by again so she can get home and maybe watch some TV, maybe even do some homework.
It's like this every day. All day.
Anna sighs, because even socially-impaired Kristoff managed to find his own friends (Anna can never quite remember their names, though. Naveed? Merda?) and Anna's stuck in the stupidest class ever.
Professor Arrendale is Anna's first period teacher. He's nice enough, she supposes, though the way he looks down his pointed nose sharply, lips pursed as if he had just eaten a sour lemon, doesn't do anything to make her feel better. Particularly on a day like today.
He's getting them all to work now. Or rather, he was getting them all to work several minutes ago and Anna was too distracted by the doodles on her desk to worry about schoolwork, really.
Who needed school.
Wait, Anna regrets saying that, even in her head, because she actually kind of likes school. Literature is her favourite subject, after all. She likes to read about fantastic adventures and quirky characters, maybe because it makes her feel normal, and also maybe because she likes to write all her feelings onto a page. She tried drawing, once, but it turns out she's even worse than Kristoff, so she just sticks to writing.
However, she hadn't quite anticipated the sheer amount of essays literature students would be forced to write. She hates essays, mostly because they're all the same – repetitive and boring, just like every day of everyone's life ever.
She'd complain but then Prof would do that sour-lemon face and tell her to shut up without even moving his lips.
Oh, oops, she should really start. Thinking about essays makes her want to write one even less now. A few words scramble their way onto the blue lines. Anna wonders if it's even readable. Probably not.
She leans her head on her desk and looks out the singular window of the classroom, until someone's head blocks the view. Professor Arrendale doesn't seem to notice, or care.
She spends the rest of the lesson dreaming.
.
"Anna," Kristoff reprimands as they sit outside the old building. It's their spot, and hell if anyone took the bench behind the arts block. They'd be dead, of course. "You should really start paying more attention in class."
"Says you." Anna spits out, though it's not malice but just her mouth trying not to stutter. "You didn't either."
Kristoff is silent now because it's impossible to win with Anna, and now they were both in so much trouble.
"… Library after school?"
After a moment, Anna nods. It's not like she had any better plans or anything.
There's a glimpse of familiar hair again – as if Anna could ever forget that platinum shade. The senior turns and Anna looks away before she think's Anna is a creep. Then Anna looks up, in case looking away made it worse, but the girl was already gone. Without even a second of eye contact.
"What's up?"
Anna doesn't answer. It's not that important. But somehow, it's not important.
There's something here that's capturing her attention, even if she doesn't know it yet.
.
Another week in, and Anna is still lethargic as ever. Lethargic is probably the wrong word. She's bouncy, sure, and Kristoff is a little disturbed at the amount of words flying and stumbling out of her mouth at miles a minute, but she's lost determination, she's lost that spark that made her so… so Anna.
He brings it up with Merida first, because Merida is in Anna's next class.
"D'you think Anna's been acting weird lately?" He asks, toeing his foot against the edge of the pavement. His impressive bulk towers over the smaller athlete, who looks up with something fierce and bold.
"Ah wooldnae ken," says that thick, Scottish accent. Kristoff strains to listen to it sometimes, but at least she doesn't timidly stutter like a certain other fiery red-head. "She's yer friend, nae mine."
As she says this, Merida presses a stubby finger into Kristoff's chest, almost knocking him flat. God, this girl was a force to be reckoned with.
"Mebbe ye should talk tae 'er!" Says Merida, rather helpfully, and Kristoff resents even trying to ask at all. But Kristoff rubs his arm and averts his eyes to the ground because, because because, he knows Anna is too strong to accept his help unless she asks for it first. He learned that the hard way last time.
This better not be a repeat of last time.
.
Professor Arrendale is what normal people would call successful. He has a successful job as a teacher and lecturer on a variety of subjects, from literature to science. He has a wife, who works at a medical school and is also very successful, and together they have a beautiful, intelligent, perfect little girl.
If anyone said anything about her odd hair colour, the Professor had chosen never to hear it.
Today, Elsa came home a minute earlier than usual, and her father eyed her as she closed the door with infinite grace and majesty and calm and walked up the stairs without a sound and disappeared without a trace.
He has never been prouder of his daughter, he thinks, tears springing unbidden to his eyes.
Yes, never prouder…
And that's a wrap! I know it seems a little snippety and hodge-podge at the moment, but what I have planned so far is supposed to eventually tie everything together, and it's actually rather complex when you think about it, though I'll try and write it straightforwardly.
That being said, sometimes I need a review to prod me along or give me ideas when I get stuck in a rut. So please, review, and this will probably not be updated until next fortnight, so there is plenty of time! Oh, and for those wondering, the title is the name of the Vietnamese "Let it Go". I thought it was cool and somewhat suits the story?
Out!