A/N: This is my first 'Frozen' one-shot! Normally I write 'Wicked' fanfics but I've had this idea for a while and finally decided to write it. Enjoy! :)

The Greatest Enemy, Fear

~ A 'Frozen' One-Shot ~

~ By Heatqueen ~

It came upon Elsa one day, only a few weeks after all the chaos was over and Arendelle was back to its glorious springtime state. Not quite void of all the ice and snow, for Elsa's powers saw to there being the occasional appearance of a beautiful ice statue or a whirl of pretty white flakes following in her footsteps, whirling around as she travelled through the land she ruled; but certainly many degrees warmer than when the awful snowstorm had hit and consumed the land in its temporary eternal winter.

Her newfound freedom was a novelty she had not experienced since she was a small child, back in the days where she had played with her sister and created magic ice castles and snowmen (She did not dwell too much on those years, the otherwise happy memories tainted with Anna's accident and Elsa's part in causing it). Suddenly able to go where she pleased, without the foreboding notion of someone getting hurt within her presence, was, after years of treading lightly and avoiding contact with the outside world, a relief; but nevertheless, it came with the distinct sensation of loss whenever she considered the huge amount of time that had passed locked away from humanity.

Such moments of consideration occurred frequently and unexpectedly, often when she was quite thoroughly in the middle of something else and would suddenly become enlightened that she had spent her entire life missing out on things. She might take a walk and feel the glorious sun on her skin (for though the cold had never bothered her, the warmth, she decided, was rather pleasant), and all of a sudden would desire to cry that such a beautiful thing as heat had never encountered her, or so it seemed after years and years of freezing everything in her sight.

The nature of the 'it' which came upon her that one day was not far from any of these instances. 'It' gripped her in the afternoon, as the sun was only just beginning to set, and Elsa sat in her bedroom with the door left open (She hated to close it nowadays), staring out of the window as she rested from a bunch of meetings with palace officials. Perhaps she ought to have known better than to allow her thoughts to drift – the memories of the ice and snow were always the most profound at times such as these – but she hadn't anything else better to do, for Anna was out visiting with a friend.

Therefore, it was unsurprising that one minute she was staring at the pastel oranges and yellows that painted the sky, and the next, she was reliving the horrific memory of her parents' passing, and the devastation it had brought to the two sisters. Until that point, her parents had been her lifeline, a bridge between the icy walls of her bedroom and the beautiful, unreachable outside world. They had sufficed as the only human contact Elsa had been allowed. At the time, she'd thought that she agreed with her parents' decision to isolate her – with the magic being so dangerous, it was for the best that she be removed from civilisation – but now much older, she realised that the decision to trap her inside her room had not been hers at all, but the result of years of brainwashing. And now, she looked back and remembered the incident with Anna, and remembered the visit to the trolls in the Valley of the Living Rock, the desperate bid to save Anna's life which had left a single white streak in her hair; and the memory of Pabbie's voice came to her, speaking words which she had long forgotten but had recently returned: Fear will be her enemy.

Nowadays, whenever she recalled them, she thought they sounded rather like a prophecy, a prediction of what would happen in years to come. As the years had passed, Elsa had, true to Pabbie's words, become increasingly more afraid of her own magic, especially as it had grown and become less stable. She recalled how her bedroom had slowly transformed from an ordinary little girl's room to a room encased in ice; how she woke up every morning to yet another uncontrolled flurry; how the ice and snow just came out of her whenever she became angry and frustrated at herself for not knowing what to do about it.

And the answer should have been so easy. All she'd had to do was learn to use her power with love; to give up the fear of hurting someone and realise that trying to suppress her ability did not, as was intended, increase control, but only waged a war between Elsa and her magic, so naturally the magic responded by lashing out. It was no wonder it had taken her so long to learn when fear was all she had ever been taught her entire life.

With that thought, she found herself drowning in a tsunami of rage and grief which tore through her body and mind, and she promptly burst into tears.

It was funny; Elsa never used to cry much. She was far more prone to the grumps or a burst of rage than tears. She could only recall crying one time before she'd frozen Arendelle, and that was when she'd learned of her parents' deaths. It had been far too much for her to have her lifeline stripped away from her – to know that the two people who had promised would be back soon, the two people who had tried to help her to control her powers, were gone, leaving her to her own devices with no one in the world left to understand her.

Whether it was down to her not naturally being inclined towards crying, or whether it was only because she'd learned that tears were usually conductive to a frozen bedroom, she wasn't sure; just that nowadays she cried more easily than ever before. This time, her tears were out of a different sort of grief, a grief of the loss of self rather than the loss of others; because Elsa truly felt that so much unnecessary time had been wasted, time which could have been spent, for instance, being a better sister to Anna. Having come out of her thick fortress of fear, she realised that the powers had taken over not only her bedroom, but her entire soul, a very human personality which had been suppressed because the magic had not only dominated her life, but had indirectly affected the lives of those who were close to her. Anna should never have had to feel so lonely and not know the reason why, and wouldn't have had to if not for their parents.

Perchance, as Elsa wept, the very sister who was in her thoughts also happened to creep up behind her, having returned from her visit. She stood in the open doorway, dumbstruck. She had been about to take off with her usual chattiness, but was halted in her tracks by the sad sight of shaking shoulders and blonde locks concealing a distraught face. Therefore, rather than gleefully jumping into the bright, merry nature of her visit, she instead approached her much more reserved sister with slow caution, lest she get ordered to leave Elsa alone, as she had been told so many times in the past.

Anna had not quite gotten over the horrible and unexplained cold shoulder given to her by her sister for all of these years, even though she finally understood the reason why. She had gone through the motions of anger and grief and then pity, and only in the last few days had she fully forgiven her sister for ignoring her for so long. Still, the number of times she had knocked hopefully and fruitlessly on Elsa's door lingered in her mind, the expectation of rejection not quite having disappeared. Thankfully, Elsa was making an active effort to pay attention to Anna in the way she deserved and, when she finally did notice Anna standing behind her, did not ask her to leave.

Instead, she wiped her eyes on the backs of her hands and continued to stare out of the window.

'Anna, I am so, so sorry.'

She had repeated the words endlessly, each apology another guilty knife in her heart, and Anna had forgiven her every time, bless her beautiful, bright and optimistic soul. It was probably good that Anna was so positive, or Elsa, in all her pessimism, would have driven herself to believe that she didn't deserve forgiveness for her actions. And just like all the other times, Anna forgave her yet again, placing one gentle hand on her shoulder and whispering to her that it was okay, that she only did what she had to do, and that Anna understood perfectly well why, even if she didn't like it.

And then, a fresh round of tears presented themselves, falling from Elsa's lashes onto her lap, and a warm pair of arms found their way around her shoulders. She gripped onto them with shaking hands, thanking whatever deity which may or may not exist that those arms were still able to be around to hug her, because there were two awful moments when they might have been ripped away from her, ripped away because of her…

She shuddered and shoved the thought away, not wanting to think about how she'd almost killed her sister.

'I love you. I do.'

She needed Anna to know that. She needed to make up for all the years she hadn't said it.

'I know.'

Anna had always known; had always been the one to have faith. She'd remained strong as Elsa gave into the darkness of her magic, something which continued to pain Elsa to this day as she remembered Anna's steadfast belief that Elsa would never hurt her, a belief which had proven false as Elsa's ice magic collided with her sister's heart. And yet, Anna insisted that she did not feel let down or betrayed. It had been only an accident. No hard feelings – as had been proven from the beginning anyway, when Anna had sacrificed herself, placed her body in front of Elsa's as that dreadful sword came down to kill her – but still, Elsa couldn't quite believe it. She still retained some hard feelings towards herself.

The sun was lowering itself onto the edge of the horizon, which could be seen from the high height of the palace on top of a tall hill. Pink and orange and tiny dots of emerging stars streaked the sky. Behind the palace, the moon would be rising – perhaps not to be seen today, for it was a new moon night, but it would be there, hidden in the shadows, waiting patiently for its time of appearance. In the days of the snow storm Elsa had spent many nights with her body sprawled out in the snow, staring up at the night sky, thinking about her curse and how blissfully alone she was miles up a mountain in her beautifully constructed ice palace. Back then she hadn't recognised the important distinction between lonesomeness and loneliness, believing the former to be the case, but only now recognising that she had, though she had vehemently denied it, been lonely. She could only see it now because it was no longer the case. Now she had Anna, and Olaf, and all the people of Arendelle supporting her.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and turned around, her eyes meeting those of her sister.

'I will do better by you.'

'I know,' Anna said again, through a smile. 'You are already.'

'No more fear. No more pushing you away. I promise.'

Elsa said this more to herself. Anna, of course, already had the faith; it was Elsa who needed to believe her own words. She took Anna's hand and squeezed it, feeling her grief dissipate. Some bad things had happened, but the past was in the past and there was no use in continuing to dwell on it. Instead, she would focus on the brighter, sunnier future, and this time she would do so without fear.

Because fear was the greatest enemy.