This is a short oneshot dedicated to all those hiding a raging storm inside. You know who you are.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the words used to paste this idea and these characters together.
Paper origami birds. She wasn't allowed scissors, so she had to content with folding the paper and crafting the tiny birds instead of snowflakes. They didn't like it when she did snowflakes. They got everywhere. That was ok. Birds were fun too. She completed another of the delicate little creatures and held it up in the palm of her hand. Light as a feather, pure white in colour.
Someone smacked into her from behind, causing the chair she was sitting on to lurch forward.
"I TOLD YOU I AM A PRINCE! GET YOUR HANDS OFFME!" Shouting.
A struggle.
Elsa turned her head to watch.
Another patient. Tall, almost redhair, quite good looking if it weren't for the crazed look in those greeneyes. He struggled against the nurses, shouting at the top of his lungs. "I AM PRINCE HANS OF THE SUTHERN ISLES AND I WILL BE TREATED AS SUCH!"
Elsa knew what would happen after that, and she turned her head away to avoid watching the ordeal. She closed her eyes and waited.
The shouting abruptly ended, and she heard the patient being dragged out of the room by the nurses. Drugged into submission. She'd heard several of his outbursts before. Sometimes late at night when there ought to be quiet, but there never was.
She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. So startled was she by the sudden appearance of the other patient and the measures the nurses had taken to subdue him, she had clutched the paper bird to her chest, breath quickening and a cold seeping through her, spreading down her arms and into her fingers, fromher fingers into the bird.
The paper craft had frozen at her touch, covering with frost and becoming solid ice in her hands.
No!She was going to get in trouble!They didn't like the snowflakes. But as she hastened to hide the bird under the table, wrapping it up in the folds of her white t-shirt, it slipped from her fingers, shattering on the ground with a sound that filled her whole head, causing her to cover her ears with her hands. She screamed.
Soft, fast footsteps coming her way.
Elsa pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, curling into a ball on her chair, burying her head in her arms.
"Elsa? What happened?" A familiar voice.
She peeked out from behind her arms. Please-call-me-Josh, one of the nurses,was standing across from her, on the other side of the table.
He smiled at her.
She couldn't bring herself to smile back.
It wasn't much longer that he discovered the shattered bird, stepping on a piece of ice that crunched under his shoe. He bent, examining the shards under the table. "Is this, glass?"
"Glass? Where did she get glass?!" Another nurse. Not a nice one. Elsa couldn't remember her name. But she was older. And meaner.
"Not glass." Elsa whispered. "Ice."
Her whispered correction seemed to go unheard as the nurse took her by the shoulders and said sternly, "Elsa, where did you get the glass?"
Elsa merely shook her head, curling herself tighter, causing the nurse to sigh in that way they all did when she made a mistake.
"Do you want to go back to your room?" Please-call-me-Josh asked.
Elsa nodded her head mutely. She placed her feet on the floor, careful to avoid the jagged pieces of ice and gathered up the pile of paper birds into her arms before she stood.
As he helped her from her chair and escorted her down the hall, he chatted, unbothered that she didn't keep up her side of the conversation. Hedeposited her in her room with a big smile, andleft the door open.
Elsa pushed it shut after he'd left with her toe, arms still full of origami creations. She padded over to the small desk she had in the far corner of the room, right under the barred window. Letting her paper birds fall onto the smooth wooden surface, she picked one back up and held it to her chest like she was cradling a child.
Ascream echoed down the hall, too close, much too close. It made her crumple the bird in her usual delicate and gentle hands. Elsa gasped as the scream continued on, only in her broken head. It sent her stumbling forward until the fronts ofher legs pressed into the edge of the desk. The crumpled bird fell from her shaking hands and she flattened them on the tabletop.
Ice.She didn't mean to. It was an accident. It spread into the desk, covering the surface, coating the pile of paper birds. Each froze over, sparkling with frost.They were going to be mad at her.
Soft knocking on her door.
Elsa's heart stuttered painfully. Her eyes shot around the little room as the knocking seemed to come from everywhere at were coming to punish her. They were going to puther in one of those jackets and a padded room.No! Not again!Panicked, shehurried to gather the ice birds to herself and shove them under the bed, bare feet slipping long on the frosty floor. She arranged the blanket so it draped over the side of the bed, hiding the pile of origami ice.
Tap tap.
"Elsa? Its me." A pause. "Anna."
Anna? The urge to throw open the door was instantaneous, and strong. She took two steps toward it before she could make herself stop. Not Anna. Not to Anna.
"Hey." Her sister's soft voice called through the closed door when it failed to open and allow her entry. "It's been a while. I'm sorry about that. Can you let me in?"
Yes. Elsa took the last two steps toward the door. She put her hand on the doorknob...No.A sob escaped her lips, and she pressed a hand over her mouth, sliding to the floor. She pressed her back into the cool surface of the door.
"Elsa?" A sigh. "Do you want to build a snowman?"
Elsa bit down on her lip, hard. The iron taste of blood erupted on her tongue.Yes, I want to build a snowman.But she didn't get up, didn't let her in.
Anna waited until it became very apparent the door would not open. She sighed again. "Ok. We'll try again another day."
Elsa waited until she heard the footsteps fade away.Oh Anna.
The ice crept up around her, spreading across the floor, up the walls. The air sparkled with it. Her tears slid down her face, silent, and freezing against her skin before they could fall. "I know, you mean well, but leave me be. Yes I'm alone, but I'm alone and free." Shewhispered thewords of the song, the same ones she always sang after one of Anna's visits, and instead of helping, they only hurt. "Just stay away and you'll be safe from me." More tears. "Oh, I'm such a fool, I can't be free, no escape from the storm inside of me." She threw her head back against the door, causing a loudbang!It hurt, but not enough. "Oh, Anna please you'll only make it worse!" She was shouting, singing and shouting, and crying.
Pounding footsteps in the hall.
The ice was spreading.
"There's so much fear!" She slammed her head back again. "You're not safe here!"
The door flew open, nurses rushed inside. Please-call-me-Josh, that mean one. Two others she didn't know.
Ice. Ice everywhere. The storm was unleashed.
As their hands came for her, Elsa threw her arms up. "I CAN'T!" She screamed.
A blast of cold, cold air and ice and snow.Everywhere.
She was cold. She was a girl made of ice and snow and frost and everything cold and distant. She was broken. She'd broken the room.
A needle pushed into her arm.
Darkness. Darkness that was colder even, then her heart, and her raging storm.