A/N: I'm not really good at this whole "writing" thing, so feedback and reviews are dearly appreciated. I can take criticism, go ahead!
"How come you can do that and I can't?" asked a young Princess Anna.
"I don't know. I wish you could though." replied Princess Elsa.
The King came in the middle of the night. His arrival was entirely unexpected; in fact, it was initially detected as an intrusion. The King's party radiated substantial mystical power. The trolls, though armed with their own powerful crystals and enchantments, cowered in the face of the great forces that entered their valley.
They could sense it-a great conflict between two discrete forces. One raged like a blizzard, throwing jagged bolts that cut through the air like a hail of razor blades. The other struggled and flickered and sputtered and whined. A battle was taking place, and the valley was the reluctant battleground.
The trolls disguised themselves as boulders, hoping the battle approaching would spare the valley. Hoofbeats pounded the fertile ground. Two pale horses with four riders burst into the centre of the valley. The riders dismounted, the ground turning to ice where the second-smallest of the party stood.
"Please, help. My daughter!"
Cautiously, the trolls approached. They removed themselves from their disguises. One of them called out:
"It's the King!"
The trolls were hardly a welcome sight in the Kingdom of Arendelle. Tales of knavery, and trickery, and cruelty were the only tales told about trolls by the common folk. But the royal family were of a different creed. Unlike the kings and queens of many other lands who sought power and profit, the rulers of Arendelle strived to protect their people, and protect their kingdom. The trolls benefited immensely from the toil and efforts of the kingdom against foreign intruders who hoped to destroy the trolls, or to seek them out for their own profit. The trolls, reaping the benefits of the kingdom's hard-earned peace expanded their mystical capabilities to unprecedented levels. Their understanding of the ethereal and the occult had grown a hundred-fold.
Now, standing before them was the King, the Queen and their two daughters. The king's daughters had been blessed with, or perhaps had acquired great magical capacity; but it was now clear they had misused it. The younger daughter with the reddish-gold hair, was being devoured by the wolfish force born of snow and ice. It was clear that this magicks had come from the daughter with the pale platinum hair.
The patriarch of the trolls, Grand Pabbie, came forward. His firm boulder chest dangling with protective crystals, he took the older daughter's hand, assessing her powers.
"Born with the powers or cursed?"
"Born." the King answered hastily. "And they're getting stronger."
Even at this age, the girl's powers were strong. They were phenomenally strong. They had an elemental strength, the likes of which the trolls had never seen. In the hands of the wrong people, the power could bring about mass destruction. The patriarch motioned for the Queen to bring him the younger daughter.
The Queen knelled. She held her child out for the troll to examine. She kept her grip tight on the cloth-wrapped bundle. The troll placed his hand on the child's forehead and considered his course of action. The younger daughter had been struck, in the head with a bolt of ice. It was eating away at her, chilling her to death. Any normal girl would have long become a statue of ice. But this girl possessed great power. Like her sister, she had an elemental strength, but this one, hailing not from frost and snow, but from flame and sun. The luminous candle that was the reserve of her magick flickered away, as the cold closed in. Her heart was struggling, channelling all its strength to resist the frost growing inside her skull.
"You are lucky it wasn't her heart. The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded."
"Do what you must."
It was the King's direct approval for the trolls to take any measure to save his daughter. The troll patriarch decided immediately. His choice benefited the trolls as much as it benefited the king.
"I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic to be safe..."
The troll turned to the elder daughter. It was clear that she had no malice when striking the younger with ice. It was likely that she did it by accident. She loved her dearly, she was concerned that the troll's remedy would erase every trace of love that she endowed upon her.
"But don't worry. I'll leave the fun."
The troll began casting his magic, a cloud of memories appearing in the air. Slowly, the tendrils of frost clutching them dissipated into the air. The troll gathered the cloud of memories and implanted them back into the child.
"She will be okay."
"But she won't remember I have powers?"
"It's for the best," the King told his elder daughter.
The troll patriarch cast a projection for the daughter and the King to see. In the projection, the daughter, now Queen is attacked by her subjects. The projection achieved its intended effect.
"Listen to me, Elsa, your power will only grow. There is beauty in your magic...but also great danger. You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy."
On all of its targets.
"No. We'll protect her. She can learn to control it. I'm sure."
A female troll, the one called Bulda moved to comfort the King and his family as the troll patriarch moved away from them under some pretence. A small flame appeared in his stony hands. His back turned to the royals, he began his work. He held it gingerly, stroking its edges with a red fire crystal. The flame grew. Quickly, Grand Pabbie captured it in a vial which he placed underneath his mossy robes.
The trolls considered themselves experts in two things, only one of which was to be taken seriously: love and magic. Fickle humans and their selfish desires were impediments to the advancement of their art. As Princess Elsa has clearly demonstrated, even the pure-hearted royals of Arendelle could not be trusted with this power. Even if they did not exercise their powers maliciously, humans could not be trusted to safely use magic. Magic though beautiful, is dangerous. While the elder princess's powers were far too powerful to be removed surreptitiously, there was no such obstacle in removing younger princess's less-developed magical capabilities. The trolls, rationalised their decision to remove the younger princess's powers as a favour to the King. It would be hard enough keeping one magic wielder under control. Arendelle would collapse under the burden of another.
Of course, the trolls did profit handsomely from acquiring Princess Anna's powers. Years later, when the younger princess returned, her heart frozen by the elder princess, now Queen, there was talk of returning the powers so that her heart can be unfrozen. While the spell on her heart was strong, it was not so strong that the Princess's excised powers, grown under the ginger care of the trolls, could not undo it. The decision was quashed, and the Princess was told to go unfreeze her heart herself. No mention was made to her of her powers.
But some time later, a great threat emerged. It was threat so great that the trolls with their crystals and enchantments were powerless against it.
Grand Pabbie, the troll patriarch, eyed the glowing white vial containing Princess Anna's powers as he held it between his thumb and forefinger.
He hoped the Princess would be able to handle having fire powers.