Well-Wishing
The pressure behind Elsa's spine coiled into a corkscrew the day the leaves fell and blanketed the west courtyard. Every night since, it ratcheted a littler further against her vertebrae. The snow drifted off the windows, off the walls, spiraled in arches she couldn't see from her father's armchair but felt, anyway. Tendrils of frost unfurled behind every shadow in her mind's eye. The wind whistled against the windowpane, against her eardrums. Winter was the hardest season to go without gloves.
She tried to turn the page but her fingertip slipped on the paper's edge. She bit her lip and flipped the book over in her hands. A layer of ice had crusted over the leather cover. Elsa let out a breath and focused. Anna had dashed into the ballroom that morning with a flush against her cheeks, singing about snow. She had skidded and almost fallen on the waxed floor, had stopped singing to laugh.
Something popped. When she opened her eyes the ice was gone except for a handful of glitter dusting her knees, the chair, the floor.
"Elsa?" Anna's voice filtered through the study door.
The door wasn't locked, but the queen folded the book shut on the end table and crossed the room to open it anyway. Anna stood in the hall, flush still riding high in her cheeks, scarf wrapped around her throat. She thrust a teacup at Elsa. "I just got in. Gerda had the cooks make a pot. They're mulling wine, too."
The porcelain was hot to the touch. "Cocoa," Elsa said, and then, "thank you."
Anna bounced on the balls of her feet and carefully fixed her gaze on the doorframe, next to Elsa's head. "Can I come in?"
"Yes, of course." Elsa stepped back. "You—you don't have to ask."
Anna smiled, and it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Don't want to interrupt anything important." She dropped onto the fainting couch.
"You didn't," Elsa said. Anna balanced the cup precariously on the arm of the couch and unwound her scarf, unbuttoned her cloak. The candlelight collected in the hollow of her throat. "And it would have been okay if you had. Interrupted." Elsa took a sip of the cocoa before she could say anything disastrous. The drink had gone cool in her hands, but the chocolate was still sweet. Silence settled between them. Elsa tried to think of something to break it. She settled on, "I haven't gone outside today."
"We'll fix that! As soon as we're done with chocolate. As long as you're not busy?"
"I'm free."
Anna grinned and sprawled back into the crook of the couch. She took a sip of her drink. Her eyes fluttered shut and she breathed out something halfway between a sigh and a moan. Elsa downed the rest of her cup in one swallow, felt a lance prick her lower stomach, thought, No, forced herself to look away from Anna's lips. They gleamed wet in the candlelight. "Chocolate," Anna murmured into her cup. She opened her eyes. "Kristoff took me on a sleigh ride after he sold his ice. Olaf came too. We got into a snowball fight. Sven won."
"Sven?"
"Sven," Anna took another swig. Free of any gratuitous sound effects or facial expressions, thank heavens. "He dug his antlers into a snow drift, Kristoff and I were hiding behind it to get away from Olaf, tossed his head around. We both got covered in snow and his antler nicked Kristoff so we decided to come back home."
Anna gestured as she talked. Her wrist curved and flared out into palm and thumb and fingertip. Elsa swallowed.
"Okay!" Anna dropped the cup on the tabletop and jumped to her feet, buttoned her cloak, tugged on her scarf. "We're going outside and you're making me something awesome."
"Am I?" Elsa asked, but she got to her feet anyway. She tried and failed to convince herself that she felt steady.
"Yes, orders of The Princess." Anna grinned over her shoulder and grabbed Elsa's hand. "The west tower, keep up."
Elsa could have mentioned that the Queen Regent didn't take orders, but she let Anna tug her along, instead.
The queen took what felt like her first real breath of the season as she stepped onto the wall. She curled her fingers over the parapet. It froze over. It was past sunset and the snow was kicking thick. Elsa felt the flurries climbing high around her and over the walls, swirling into town, as much as she saw them. She stretched out her arms and let go of the ache behind her spine.
"Something awesome, Anna?" Elsa yelled over the wind.
Anna pumped the air. Elsa thought so anyway, even with the torch Anna held it was hard to see through the storm.
Elsa flexed her fingers, held a building in her mind, breathed out. The pressure behind her eyes loosened, hummed, whistled down her veins and bled into the winds around her. Ice latticed above the two of them until it formed a solid steeple, sunk down to touch the flagstones of the wall and shimmered into a door, climbed along itself and stone and solidified into crystal leaves and dangling vines. The howling stopped. Anna reached out to touch a clear clump of leaves stretching over her head.
"Wow—"
"Not done." Elsa pushed a stag from the inside of her skull onto the flagstones. She had intended for it to be a statue, a centerpiece for the makeshift temple, but when she lowered her hands it tossed its head and turned to stare at the both of them.
"Hey, little guy." Anna stepped a few paces forward and reached out a hand. The stag snorted, clopped forward on hooves made of ice, and nuzzled her palm. "He looks a little like Sven. It's beautiful, Elsa."
"Thank you." Elsa let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She was loose, giddy. Light.
I could do it, she thought, staring at Anna's back as the woman cooed to the stag. Elsa could pin her against the wall, against the leaves, taste where Anna's throat dipped into collarbone. Anna paused from patting the stag's neck to look over her shoulder and smile. Elsa swallowed.
But she didn't. It was for the best. Elsa knew how to love things without touching them.
Prompt: Elsa having one-sided feelings about Anna, but only ever internally and never out loud. Only enough to pain her slightly, but not have her be really depressed.