Do you want to build a snowman?
Why would she never stop asking that? Snow swirled around her hands. It would be oh so easy to build a hundred snowmen in less than a minute. Ice started sprouting in a circle around her.
Conceal. Don't feel.
It was possibly the worst bit of advice she'd ever been given. Even the act of trying so hard not to feel anything was excruciating. It felt vaguely like she was taking of those shards of ice she couldn't stop making and impaling herself on them. She squeezed her eyes shut, agony burning through her. Ice was everywhere.
Do you want to build a snowman?
Conceal. Don't feel.
Why did they keep Anna locked inside the castle too? She was not the one with magic that couldn't be controlled. She was not the monster. The ice only ever grew. It got harder to undo the magic enough to even get the door to her bedroom open. She would never control it, so why bother to pretend it was possible? Let Anna out of the castle. Let Anna be the princess. Let her be the Queen someday.
Do you want to build a snowman?
Conceal. Don't feel.
Never let it show.
"You want what?" Her father's expression was blank. Elsa was poignantly aware of the ice creeping up the wall in her corner of the room. She took a deep breath and released it.
"It shouldn't be that hard." She argued, hands clenched within her gloves. "Anna is more than capable of learning the ins and outs of running a country. All the servants say she's brilliant."
"You are the eldest." Her father snapped.
"I can't rule!" Elsa exploded, wincing as a flurry of snow whipped through the room. "Father, please. This isn't fair to Anna."
"It's for her protection."
"What are you protecting her from?" She argued, voice cracking. "I never see her, Father. At least let her see more of the world that the inside of this castle! Let her rule. I don't need a throne to be happy. Anna is more of a princess than I'll ever be."
"That is not true." He said sternly, approaching her corner. Elsa flinched back, flattening to the wall. Conceal. Don't feel. She chanted it in her head, too petrified to speak. He reached out, grabbing her shoulders. "You are my daughter." He said softly, reaching to push an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "And I love you. Never forget that."
It was too much. The ice was building within her; the pressure was insane. She ducked from his hands and fled, leaving a neat sheen of ice in her wake. Tears streamed down her face, but she was racing through all the hidden passageways in the castle. They were built for the servants, but the servants were forbidden from using them. These passages were Elsa's only way to leave her room. It was much too risky for her to chance an encounter with Anna. Lately, it had been too risky for her to be around anyone.
To everyone's best guess, Anna had never discovered one of the passages. They were pointedly never mentioned, and Elsa knew that her sister lingered out in the lawn or in the portrait gallery the most. If she wasn't in either place, she'd likely be outside Elsa's bedroom door. Waiting. Pleading. Crying.
It was so unfair for Anna to be punished like this. Elsa threw herself onto her bed, sobbing. Would her father ever understand? Would he listen to her pleas? She knew Anna would die for the chance to get outside the palace walls. She'd make a wonderful heir and a better queen. She could marry safely. Without the fear that a misplaced emotion would irrevocably harm her husband. Even kill him. How had Elsa's exile turned into torture for Anna as well?
Repetition.
Elsa resolved to take up the issue with her father every time he came to visit her. She even brought it up to her mother, despite her father's warnings. Let Anna out of the castle. Teach her about the world beyond its walls before it was too late. Anna had a precious innocence about her. A naivety that was terrifying. She needed safe exposure to the cruelty of the world. Oh, surely not the worst of it; but at least something to protect her from those who might take advantage of a pretty, approachable princess.
Finally, nearly six weeks after she'd first came up with the idea, Elsa heard the servants talking. Lady Anna would be accompanying the King on his royal duties in the city. Elsa quite literally crumpled to the ground, her relief was so great. Let her sister be free.
She took the unexpected opportunity to sneak into the library and pilfer some books. "Forbidden" books. She read through them like a person starved, desperately seeking answers. Seeking a way to convince her father to name Anna the heir. There was no answer in these books.
But she dreamed. Dreamed of fleeing into the mountains. Into the deep wilderness; to the place they once went to find help for Anna. It sparked an idea. It was madness, surely. But the idea took root and never left.
So one day, she packed a small rusack of useful tools and plain dresses. She left the palace, slipping through the wall via a hidden door that deposited her right on the fjord. She went in the dead of the night, so there was no one to see her make a pathway of ice across the water. Elsa lingered long enough to know that it melted in her wake.
She prayed to never be found. She begged the gods to watch over her sister—to help Anna find a better life in her absence. She hoped beyond all hope that her sister might find someone to love her as she deserved to be loved. That Anna would grow old and be happy. Elsa knew that her parents would eventually forgive her this treachery of running away. They would be angry, of course, and perhaps afraid. But they would come to see, as she had seen, that this was the best way to solve their problems. Anna would be the sole princess and heir to the throne. She would become queen many, many years from now. She would be safe from the curse. She would be happy.
What more could a sister ask for?
Of course I want to build a snowman. With you, always.