This was a fic requested by a friend of mine, showing Elsa's point of view – watching her sister from afar until the moment when she sees Anna standing there at the bottom of the stairs. And I complied, because I like nothing better on a Sunday evening than digging my heart out with a rusty spoon.
Edit: I added in line breaks between sections. The original file had them, and I didn't double check before I posted. Sorry to those who tried to read this before and couldn't understand what was going on...
"Elsa?
The knock came at the door. Elsa should have expected it.
Mama and Papa had explained to Anna, she thought, but then Anna was only five. She wouldn't understand.
Elsa looked up from her book, her hand tightening on the pages.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?"
The book was instantly covered in ice. Elsa dropped it in shock in surprise, stiffing a gasp.
No, no, no. I'm supposed to be controlling it.
"Come on, lets go an play."
Flakes of snow began to fall in her bedroom. It had never happened like that before, when she didn't want it too. The powers really were getting stronger. Or maybe she was getting weaker. Elsa drew her knees up to her chest. Don't answer. She'll go away. She'll be safe from me.
"It's like you've gone away."
She should be sent away. Ice was spreading out from her, covering her bed. Papa would be so sad if he saw this, so disappointed. If Anna were in here, she'd end up hurting her again.
"It doesn't have to be a snowman..."
"Go away, Anna!" Elsa yelled the words. Tears came to her eyes and froze as they fell, creating a pile of perfect ice crystals in her lap.
"Okay... bye..." She heard the tiny footfalls
She was a monster.
"Papa, put his head on!" Elsa could hear her sister's high pitched voice through the closed window. Despite knowing that it would only hurt her, she went to go look.
Anna was bouncing up and down, watching her father struggle with the heavy ball of snow. Elsa could see her pigtails waving from under her hat. When had her hair gotten so long?
"No!" Anna shouted, "it goes the other way, Papa!"
Elsa couldn't make out the shape of the snowman properly, but she watched her father struggle to flip the head over. Was her sister trying to recreate Olaf? The thought hurt. Olaf was their snowman, recreated to exacting perfection every time.
"No, it's three buttons," Anna shouted. Father replied, but his voice was so low she couldn't make out what he said.
"Life me up." Anna was lifted up so she could reach the top of the snowman's head. She shoved in the twigs that would be his hair. She had always insisted that the snowman needed hair.
Ice was spreading from Elsa's fingers, covering the sill. She looked down and drew her hands back.
Anna was making Olaf with someone else. Even if it was with Papa...
Elsa looked at her hands. She'd never be able to make something wonderful again, would she? She was broken. She could never control this monster inside of her.
"Hello, dear princess," her father was saying in an odd voice. She looked up. He was behind Olaf, waving his arms as Elsa had once done. "I am Sir Olaf."
Anna, who had been sitting watching, leapt to her feet. "No, papa, no!" She turned and ran toward the doors, leaving Father kneeling in the snow next to the snowman. "That's not Olaf!"
"And then the prince tells her that they'll get married that afternoon!"
Elsa froze at the sound of her sister's voice. She had thought she was the only one awake this late, taking a stroll through the gallery to relieve some of the tedium of the mountain of books her father had set her to read.
"It was the most romantic thing I've ever heard," Anna sighed.
Who was she talking to? Elsa wondered. She didn't know if her sister had any friends – could it be a servant? She crept forward, poking her head around the archway. Anna was sitting on a plush bench facing a large painting, her back to the door. Her hair was hanging loose and was a huge mess. In the light of a single candle sitting on the floor, Elsa could see that she was wearing a pale green nightdress.
Still wearing green all the time.
"Do you think I'll ever get married?" There was no one else in the room, and no one answered the question, but Anna didn't seem to expect one. "Papa says when I'm older we'll open the gates up and we'll have balls so that me and Elsa can find husbands."
Elsa's heart flopped at the sound of her own name.
"I don't see how Elsa'll manage a ball, she hardly leaves her room."
Elsa would have expected her sister to sound bitter, or scoffing, but there was something about her voice that was... sad. Like she still, after all of these years, wanted Elsa to come out and play. Like she didn't hate her.
"It's so far away, though," Anna continued. "I feel like I'll never get older. Like things will never change."
Oh, Anna. Elsa wanted to go to her sister. She wanted to be the other half of this conversation. If only she could get older faster, too. If only she could get to the place where she could control her powers. Anna would be the first person she'd want to talk to. To touch. She'd go right up to her and give her a hug. She'd say "Anna, yes, let's build a snowman."
She must have sighed, because Anna suddenly whipped her head around.
"Who's there?" she asked. Elsa pulled her head, pressing herself against the wall. She held her breath, but she didn't hear Anna getting up.
After a moment, her sister spoke again. "Now look at me. I'm imagining things."
Elsa slowly let out her breath and began to creep back down the hallway, back to her bedroom, glad that her sister hadn't seen her.
Or, she told herself that she was glad.
"And your sister has already managed to destroy the cake," Kai said, coming to the end of a long list of things he felt Elsa needed to know on the morning of her coronation.
"Destroy the cake?" Elsa was momentarily distracted from her worrying.
"She dropped a bust in it while running around the ballroom."
Elsa pondered this for a minute. What had Anna been up to, that she managed to drop a bust in a cake? It seemed like such a bizarre thing to have happen. She supposed that she would never know.
"We already have another one on the way."
"Thank you, Kai," Elsa replied, still puzzling over it. "I'd like some time alone to prepare, now."
She let out a breath when the man left. It felt like she was.. well, was walking on thin ice, every time she talked to someone today. She was nervous about loosing control and that was making it hard to stay in control.
Conceal, don't feel.
She went through all the advice her father had given her growing up. She could do this, she had to do this.
Papa. Help me.
Anna was there, but she wasn't there. Through the coronation and then going into the ballroom she was closer to Elsa physically than she had been in years, but they didn't say anything or make eye contact. It was for the best. She kept up her calm, falsely happy smile. She had made it through the coronation. She was queen. She could make it through the ball.
But then Kai presented them and he placed Anna so close to her... it would be churlish not to look at her. She was tucking her hair behind her hair, looking away nervously.
"Hi..." Elsa said softly.
"Hi? Hi me? Oh... um... hi."
The false smile became just a bit more real. Oh, Anna. She had grown up... but she also hadn't. "You look beautiful."
"Thank you." Anna laughed, and blushed. "You look beautifuller – I mean, not fuller. You don't look fuller, but more beautiful..."
It was Elsa's turn to laugh. Anna was so... Anna. "Thank you," she said. Real happiness was filling her. Standing next to Anna wasn't awkward anymore, it was right. It was where she had longed to be for thirteen years and it just felt... perfect. Even laughing at Anna dancing with the Duke was a hundred times more joyful than anything she had felt since she was small.
Everything was going right for once.
And then, "I wish it could be like this all the time."
"Me too," Elsa replied, her heart felt warm and full of love for the sister she had missed for all these years. She gazed into Anna's face, a face that seemed to be the same as when they had played for hours in the snow...
I nearly killed her. The old guilt came back so suddenly it was like a physical force knocking the air out of her lungs. I nearly killed her. She looked away. "But it can't."
"Well, why not-" Anna reached out to touch her and Elsa drew away. How could she have forgotten, for even a moment? She was a monster, she wasn't safe. Anna could not find out about her secret. Anna would hate her if she knew.
"It just can't," she snapped.
"Excuse me for a minute."
It took all her strength not to call her back.
The palace was a refuge, but it was also a self imposed prison. It was a place where Elsa could be herself without hurting anyone. That was what it was supposed to be. Concealing, controlling – it hadn't worked.
"Elsa? It's me, Anna!" The call from the castle entrance made her heart stop. The column she was making splintered.
No. Anna was here. What was she doing here?
Tripping over her own feet, apparently. The flash of panic was mingled with amusement.
Elsa took a deep breath. She had to face her sister, even if Anna thought she was a monster. She had made her decision, to be who she was even if that was a monster. Anna fearing her would keep her safe.
"Anna," she called out, stepping into view. She was self conscious, aware that she wasn't dressed like a proper queen. That she was everything that she had been told not to be. That all her secrets were laid bare now and all she wanted was to run and hide.
Anna looked up. "Woah," she said, her eyes wide. There was no fear, no anger.
Elsa was confused. She barely heard as Anna babbled about how she looked. Her sister wasn't repulsed by her. She was not scared of her magic as Elsa had always feared.
Beauty. This is what Anna saw in Elsa's power. What she saw in Elsa.
And for the first time in forever, Elsa could see it too.