A/N: Written for the day one, Kissing You prompt for Elsanna Week. No smut, but plenty of sensuality, and because of our protagonists' ages (and lack of meaningful consent, really) I've rated this M.
Stormchild
by Nina Windia
It's during the winter of her fifteenth year- a bad winter, the cold snatching away the elderly in their sleep, the mountain stealing travellers to slake her thirst- that the Princess Anna falls suddenly and gravely ill.
Although she only leaves her bedroom out of necessity, her sister Elsa knows immediately that something is wrong.
Sitting at her desk reading, Elsa will incline her head out towards the courtyard her room looks down upon, and Anna is not there. The cheerful whistle is gone from the hallway, as are the groans as an unlucky servant coaxes the princess from her bed in the morning. All the little noises for that Elsa listens for, as imperative to her day as strikes of the hour, are absent. Most of all, she misses the footsteps outside her door as she drags her feet to bed. Once, her sister would have pressed her back to her door, voice vibrating through the heavy oak to tell her about her day. She stopped, years ago, but when Anna shuffles past, yawning, there's always something. The heavy footfalls will cease for a second, as if in thought. Elsa's breath will hitch in her throat, the thought skipping across her subconscious, light as a water-boatman.
What if she knocks?
But Anna never knocks, not anymore, and after a brief moment Anna will shuffle away to bed, the thought skipping away, and Elsa will tell herself she's glad Anna didn't knock, since she would never be able to answer anyway.
One day, she might even be able to make herself believe it.
Elsa is so accustomed to this little daily ritual: the pause; the held breath; the bitter disappointment, that when it does not come she's thrown off-kilter for the rest of the day, as though she's seeing the world from an unnatural angle. She's absent with her tutors and inattentive with her lessons. She only picks at the slice of victoria sponge cake Gerda brings up. She freezes her windowsill craning her neck looking for her sister in the gardens, even while wearing her gloves.
During her evening chess game with Papa, she manages to lose in less than a dozen moves.
"You seem distracted, Elsa," he says.
She running her thumb over the seam of her cream kid-skin glove, over and over, and although that spot between her Papa's brow always creases when she mentions her sister, she cannot help herself. "Where's Anna?" she asks.
That little crinkle at his brow. "Did one of the staff say something to you?"
"No..." there's a sinking feeling. I shouldn't have asked. Why did I ask? Her thumb, teasing at the seam, She cannot admit to important Anna's little noises- her off-kilter hum, her distant laughter, all the proof of her existence- are vital to Elsa's half-life as food, as breathing.
Papa sets the board for another game. He always plays as white. "She's not feeling well," he divulges, as he places the pieces. "The doctor has secluded her to her room for a few days bed rest."
Anna, ill? Elsa's heart hammers against her chest, banging against her ribcage. She must be sick if she's been sent to bed, since there's little more her sister hates than being trapped in her room. It takes every part of Elsa's will to take her move as though nothing is wrong, though she cannot keep the stammer out of her voice as she asks, "What's w-wrong with her?"
"Just a cold she's not been looking after properly. You know how your sister is. She's caught a mild fever."
The fever is worrisome, but Papa looks as calm and relaxed as ever as he takes his move, and that reassures her.
"That's good. You'll tell her I hope she feels better soon?" Elsa says, swallowing down the sigh.
"Of course," Papa says, as he takes her pawn.
But the next morning, Anna is still absent, and Elsa cannot even concentrate on the geometry work her maths tutor has set her. Cannot escape the thoughts that churn round like a clockwork carousel in angles, numbers, lines.
It's the same the next morning, and without these little staples to her day, Elsa forgets other things, too. She loses her slippers. She forgets to take the vitamin pills, the ones the physician prescribed her when her hair started falling out in chunks in the bathtub. The ones he gave her when Papa took him aside tersely to explain that no, his daughter couldn't just go outside and get some sun to rectify the vitamin D deficiency.
Worse, a winter storm has blown in, and her tutors can't make it to the castle. She can never seem to concentrate during storms, and there's little Elsa can do but stare at the same line of text in the Hardy novel she's read a dozen of times already, and fret, the pounding snow against the window stirring something in her blood.
When she hears the concerned whispers down the hall from Anna's room, she does something she's not done in months, except for trips to the bathroom and in desperate forays to the library: Elsa leaves her room.
Her mother and the royal physician, standing by Anna's door, look as surprised by Elsa's appearance as though a ghost has blown though the castle. Elsa clutches her arms to herself, fighting the urge to retreat. Makes herself ask: "Anna's still sick?"
It's taken her years to identify the mix of emotion in her Mama's eyes when she looked at her, but Elsa can do it now. It's a potent cocktail of compassion, and guilt.
"Her Highness's fever has heightened. I've prescribed her some medicine to try to bring it down, but..." the physician says.
"But?" That one word is icy needles, prickling at her numbing skin.
"Well, she's strong and young. The rest is up to God," the physician sighs. "I'll be back tomorrow morning. Keep her under constant observation, and please send for me if anything changes."
"I'll see you out, doctor," the Queen says.
"Please, don't trouble yourself, your Majesty. Stay with your daughter." He gives Elsa a short, respectful bow, and takes his leave.
Mother and daughter and left alone stood on the darkening landing, and when their eyes meet there is a mutual look of fear.
Until the Queen says, stiffly, "Well- I should-" she looks back towards Anna's door.
"I should go to bed. It's late," Elsa interjects, almost violently.
Her mother's eyes are guilty, grateful at how understanding Elsa always is. She wishes her goodnight, and vanishes into Anna's room, clicking the door closed behind her.
Elsa stands in the shadows of the landing for a few minutes after, eyes adjusting to the dark.
She barely sleeps that night. How can she? She imagines her sister, only yards from her, rolling and groaning in her sleep, breath rattling, teeth chattering. Something Papa said to her during their game sticks to her thoughts like toffee to her teeth: "You know how your sister is."
Yes, there are parts about Anna that she knows better than anybody. She can recognise her from the sound of a footstep. She knows she takes her bath late, and from the tunes she sings, half-hums, she knows every single one of her favourite songs. She could draw the parting of Anna's hair from memory for all the times she's looked and watched her from her window.
And yet in most ways- all the ways that matter, really- they are complete strangers. She and her sister have not held a conversation in a year, ever since their awful meeting on the landing when she'd bumped into Anna on her way out the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her eyes going impossibly dark green like forest shadows and a bead of perspiration rolling to pool in the dip of her collarbone.
"Had a nice bath?" she blurted, out of something to say, as though they were ordinary sisters (foolish, foolish, foolish witchchild she is).
"Fine," Anna had said, more taken aback than anything else. "You- you were waiting for-?"
"The bathroom, yes. Sorry."
"No. I'm-"
"It's fine."
Anna, clamping the towel more tightly around herself. There's a splotch of red spreading over her jawbone. "Lena hasn't drained the tub yet. I mean- if you were planning on taking a bath."
"It's fine," Elsa says, again.
"Well, I-" Anna shifts her weight, leg to leg, and Elsa is staring at the wood grain now, too guilty to meet the eyes that roam greedily over her, taking in her thinning hair, trying to puzzle out the skinny form beneath her gown.
Suddenly, it's too much. "I should go. It's late. Goodnight." The words leave her in a burst, a verbal door-slam, and it only takes a second later for Elsa to throw the heavy wooden bathroom door between them. She sinks down into a crouch, stifling the sob that forces its way from her throat like bile. The soft bathmat beneath her cracks and crystallises in awful spikes and a sob spills beneath her fingers, and "No—no—no-"
"Elsa?"
She clamps a hand more tightly over her mouth. The slight creak of the floorboard as Anna shifts her weight outside the door. She hasn't left.
"Elsa, are you okay in there?"
"I- I'm fine, Anna, Elsa says, voice splitting in two with the sudden violence of a stick snapping underfoot in the forest.
"Are- are you sure?" Anna's question is quiet, hesitant, and it occurs to Elsa: she no longer knows how to speak to her. "It sounded like you were..."
Crying? Crystallising the bathroom floor? The situation is so ludicrous Elsa can't decide whether to laugh, or sob.
"I'm fine," she says again, voice arcing even higher, sounding even less convincing.
The bar of light under the door shifts, and there's the scuffling sound as Anna pushes her weight up against the door.
"Elsa, I've been... worried about you lately. Papa says you're just busy studying, but you never leave your room any more. I mean..."
Silent tears are rolling down Elsa's face. Why? Why do you still care about me, after everything I've done to you? I don't deserve you at all.
"Elsa?" Anna asks again, but it's quieter, resigned. This the girl who grew up talking to doors and who learned they rarely spoke back. Anna's weight lingers against the door-frame for another minute, and there's an infinitely sad sigh as her sister's footsteps retreat down the hall.
The ghost of Papa's voice tickles against her ear. "You know how your sister is," Papa says, and no, she doesn't know her at all, not any more.
The storm intensifies, rattling the batten-down shutters like chattering, wind-up teeth. Another avalanche on the north mountain. This time, she swallows the ramshackle-hamlet beneath her whole in her hunger. The servants stoke the fires up high as they can go, but the chill still creeps in through the old, cold stone of the castle with all its odd nooks and crannies.
Only Princess Elsa's grate remains unlit, her witchflesh unperturbed by the chill. She sleeps in a thin cotton nightgown. She paces. The whispers in the hall grow like the gathering of dark storm clouds, and the lines on her Papa's brow dig deeper.
She doesn't even have to ask. Anna isn't getting better.
She paces; she paces; she paces. The castle is sealed up tighter than a drum and a restlessness like an itch gets into Elsa's bones. These winter storms- the intense ones- always do something to her. They climb into her marrow. Whip her blood into some sort of stifled frenzy. It calls out for- something.
"You know how your sister is."
She doesn't know how her sister is, and her sister might be dying, and all Elsa can do is pace, and pace, and pace, and try not to freeze everything.
In frustration, she unbolts her window, the biting wind so fierce it snatches the shutters from her and slams them back enough the wall with enough ardour to chip the paintwork. The wind, the snow- it all blows in. It caresses her face, teasing the material of her nightgown.
That something in her blood calls to Elsa, and she finds her foot sinking into the plush seat under the window, digs her fingers into the grooves either side of the windowsill. She steps up.
The storm howls through her. Whistles and groans, rips and tears through her restless lethargy and strips it away. It teases up her insubstantial nightgown to caress at her thighs in thorough, heated kisses. She's the child of the storm, throwing her head back in near ecstasy, the papers on her desk whipped into a whirlwind of debris, and-
There's a slam, and an urgent voice, rising above the death-rattle of the wind- "Your Highness, I felt a terrible draft- your Highness?!"
Elsa can only imagine what the maidservant sees. The Princess, soft material floating up above her knees like bobbing sea-foam, her blond-white witch-hair flying, offering herself up to the wind like some pagan sacrifice.
Or, like a goddess.
But to the woman's credit, all she does is cry for the princess to come down from there; that's dangerous; she'll catch herself a deathly chill.
The wind has torn something away, and there's the shadow of a smirk on Elsa's at that idea, before she steps down and the woman bolts the glass and shutters closed.
"It's freezing in here, your Highness," the woman titters. Christine, the name comes to her. "I'll light the fire and fetch you some blankets-"
"Not necessary," says Elsa. It's the storm. The storm has got inside her, and from Christine's wide, wary eyes, she can see it too.
The servants all know, of course. They're bound and signed and paid into secrecy but they all know, even if they never speak of it. The ruined furniture and mildewed wallpaper- it doesn't, after all, replace itself when Elsa is out in the library with her tutor.
"V-very well, your Highness," Christine acquiesces, and Elsa cannot tell if the stammer is from fear, or nerves, or simply the cold of the room that she cannot feel.
"I want to know about my sister. Has she improved at all?" Elsa asks.
The servant hesitates, and Elsa knows the news isn't good.
She's watched Anna for most of her life. Does she have no choice now but to sit back and simply watch her die?
"The doctor came this afternoon to increase her dosage, but her fever is very severe... she's been delirious for the last few days. Talking about snowmen, of all things," Christine says, without looking at her.
Snowmen...?
"I want to see her," she says, and it's a demand.
The servant's eyes go wide. "I'm not sure that's..." she begins weakly.
"My sister might be dying, and you're telling me I'm not allowed to see her?" Elsa's voice cracks.
Because if Anna does die, then what was the point in all of this? What was the point of any of it?
But Christine only says, "I'm sorry. You'll have to speak to his Majesty. I'm afraid I can't-"
It's not the woman's fault, but the storm is still roiling inside Elsa, the shutters slamming against the bolt as Elsa shouts, "Get out!" her voice crackling with thundersnow.
Christine, very quickly, gets out.
And Elsa paces, and paces, and paces, and then hurls herself into her bed, wrapping herself in her blankets and snow and sadness. There's no point in asking Papa. She can hear his small, disappointed sigh in her head already. His, "We've discussed this, Elsa-" as though she's ever had any choice in any of this.
So instead, some hour after midnight when the castle is utterly silent apart from the low moan of the wind, Princess Elsa creeps down the hallway and quietly clicks open Anna's door.
The heat from the room hits her in the face like a furnace. The room is cast in flickering warm hues from the fire, heavily stacked with wood. On the bed her sister is a mound of blankets, and Elsa's eyes leap up anxiously to her mother, slumped in dead exhaustion by her daughter's bed-side. Even in the flickering half-light she makes out the dark bags beneath her eyes.
Pins and needles prick at her fingertips, her magic roiling restlessly beneath her skin, feeding off her anxiety and turmoil. She rubs her hands together, over and over.
Anna is buried beneath half a dozen blankets, sleeping. She breathes heavily in her sleep, and fear hitches in Elsa's chest when she hears the rattle in it. She rubs her hands together. Her little sister's face is flushed and splotched and Elsa can feel the heat coming off her from here. Incredibly carefully, she presses the back of her gloved hand against Anna's temple. She's hot. Far too hot. Her nightgown has clung to her places with sweat, damp hair clinging to her forehead. She's suffocating under all those blankets. Elsa tugs them off her, pulling them down below her knees, and Anna seems to breathe a little easier.
"...Elsa," Anna mutters, and a cold chill freezes her blood. But her sister's eyes stay closed. She scratches and pulls at her nightgown in discomfort. Still too hot. "Els'... Elsa..." the way her sister sculpts her name with pink parted lips sends another, different thrill through Elsa.
She shuffles up onto the bed next to her sister. "I'm here, Anna," she says, looking briefly up to Mama, who in all this time hasn't stirred. "Bet she hasn't slept in days, watching over you," she says, to herself as well as Anna.
"Elsa, he's melting..." Anna mutters, and Elsa leans in close to listen, but the rest is incoherent.
She remembers what Christine said: "Talking about snowmen, of all things."
Despite the grave situation, Elsa can't help but smile, a little. "You're thinking about Olaf? He gave the warmest hugs, didn't he?"
"Uh-huh..."
Elsa pauses. Can Anna actually understand what she's saying? "Anna?"
"He's melting, Els'. Fix him," Anna mutters.
"Don't worry, I will. Don't worry about anything."
Anna seems to settle down a little, and now Elsa's powers have stopped rattling around inside of her, she chances slipping off one glove and tentatively taking her temperature. She's burning up.
Elsa slides off the bed, and with the tongs pulls the biggest log out from the fire. But it's still not enough. She rubs her hands together- one gloved, the other bare- even though her magic is behaving itself right now.
She has the power to cool Anna off- literally- in her hands. But ten years of trying to bury it so deep down she can't feel it any more leaves her pacing the overheated bedroom. Maybe it might be better to just wake Mama. To let her take care of it...
And then Anna breathes, "Elsa, please..." and she no longer has a choice to make. Not that it dissolves the anxiety. She slides up beside her sister, clutching her ungloved hand to her chest as though she's wielding a musket gun with the ball loaded.
And then very gently, she lays her bare hand on Anna's superheated forehead, and releases the tiniest sprinkling of frost. Apparently, it's the right thing to do because she sighs a little indulgent moan that spikes an arrow of heat all the way down to the pit of Elsa's belly. "Aah..."
Elsa considers, briefly, that maybe there was more than one reason Papa kept them separated.
She becomes a little braver. Doubting it will do the poor girl's fever any good to be covered in snow, Elsa makes her hands ice cold and uses her fingers to soothe Anna's burning skin. She strokes her face, her ears, her scalp. She runs her fingers down her neck, along her white collarbone, and Anna responds to her touches, pushing her flesh against her fingers, sighing in relief and delight. "Elsa-aah..."
She might be cooling Anna down, but her touches are having the opposite effect on Elsa. She feels as though she's taking the heat from her sister, drawing it from her with her fingers into her own body. The heat tingles pleasantly he way down to her toes, and when Anna gasps, she feels it heating parts of her that have never before been warmed.
The storm inside her cajoles her, and in her enthusiasm Elsa slips closer, shuffling on her knees to slip one leg over her sister, straddling her just like Anna would when they were children. "El-sa~ the sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to pl~ay~!"
She makes her body as cold as Anna's is hot, and beneath her her sister releases a sigh of appreciation at the increased contact.
It's the first time Elsa's touched anyone in years- how many, she's lost count- and the feeling is like laudanum, like a drug. It's only when Elsa's fingers itch to slip further down, to map out Anna's breasts, her smooth stomach, that Elsa begins to wonder how much of this is self-indulgence.
Her eyes flick up to their mother, still lost to sleep. Anna sighs in dissatisfaction as Elsa removes her hands before things turn into something neither of them are ready for.
But, she's still a witch, and Elsa cannot help but give way to the desire that's been tugging at her every since Anna first muttered her name. She pushes back her hair and leans down, kisses her sister on the lips. Her breath is both stale and too-sweet, but Anna's lips part for her and it's heaven and hell and all of purgatory too.
She's much cooler, now, her breath a little more even. Elsa has taken her heat into her body and she clambers off her sister and gently, lovingly pulls one of the blankets back over her. She tucks her in, stroking the side of her cheek.
"Sleep well," she says, though she lingers a little longer in the dark, grasping tight at their remaining time together. But Mama begins to stir, and their remaining time is fast slipping out through her fingers like so many grains of sand.
By the time the Queen of Arendelle jolts awake, Elsa is long gone. She shivers, and pulls her silk shawl tighter around her shoulders against the cold draft.
That night, the winter storm judders to a violent, howling finish. When the grey half-light of Arendelle's winter morning dawns, the world breathes in, utterly still and white.
Elsa, her wild hair carolled back into its crown, gloved, her high collar starched, hears the whispers in the hall take on a brighter tone.
A week later, when the memories of that night have become something spun from dream and delirium, her Papa- the deep wrinkles on his brow chased away- tells her that Anna has made a full recovery.
Elsa smiles. "Checkmate."
The next evening, before bed, she sits at her desk shuffling through her linguistic notes, half-listening, waiting.
She hears it. That familiar shuffling, half-asleep walk as Anna drags herself towards her bed, a little more sluggish than usual. Elsa's pen pauses above the paper, her breath catching-
"Elsa," Anna says, voice a little hoarse, and Elsa's pen slips clean from her fingers. "I know you're in there. You don't have to say anything, but you'll listen, right?"
She forces herself to breathe again, slipping from her chair. There's a scuffle as Anna sits herself down in front of Elsa's door.
Elsa does the same, imagining there's no heavy door between them. Imagining them sat back to back, shoulders touching.
"Mama says we had one heck of a storm. Did you see the apple tree in the courtyard? Blew it right over! And apparently I slept through the whole thing. Still feel kinda lousy, to tell the truth. Feels like someone's sandpapered my throat. Yuck!" Anna's head must be pressed to the door, because Elsa can heard her hoarse, breathy laughter vibrating through the heavy wood. Elsa smiles to herself and turns her cheek to the door. Lets Anna ramble.
"I was out of it for a whole week! Can you believe that? That's scary. Turns out Kai was right when he said I'd catch my death having picnics up on the roof. Oh well..." She goes quiet for a whole minute, enough time to Elsa to begin worrying she's gone and left, but then she hears her sister clearing her throat.
"I know you came to visit me when I was sick," she says softly.
A hot lance of fear. She hadn't been awake... had she?
"You left your handkerchief behind. Found it on my pillow. I'd give it back to you, but it's awfully nice. Maybe, if you asked for it back..." there a note of a dare, of mischief in her voice, and Elsa pouts a little. "Guess it's mine, then!"
And that'd been her favourite handkerchief, too.
"Ah.. anyway, I just came to say..." hesitation, "it made me really happy, to know you came to see me. I know you've got your own stuff going on, and you're busy, but... it made me realise that you must care about me, after all. I guess, I wonder about that sometimes... so I was really happy, when I found your handkerchief."
Tears prickle at Elsa's eyes. But for the first time in a long time, they're happy tears. She thinks she hears something like a sniff outside the door, too, before Anna perks up, barrelling on: "Oh! And while I was asleep I had a dream about you. I dreamt we were building a snowman, just like when were kids. Do you... remember that, Elsa?"
How could I forget? She wants to ask. You bothered me about building that bloody snowman for months!
"It was the most realistic thing ever. Especially afterwards, when... ah, actually never mind that part!" Anna says, laughing, and Elsa can feel the blush dusting her sister's cheekbones from here. "Uhm. I guess I should let you get back to your studies now, or whatever. Um." Despite this pronouncement, there's no sign of movement. Elsa inclines her head to listen.
"I- I know you probably don't want to, but I'm here for you. If you need to talk, okay? If you really want to, you can just come to my door, and I'll listen to you, alright? I... love you, you know."
Elsa notices now: under the crack of the door, Anna's hand.
She's crying to hard to speak, and so she takes her sister's hand instead. Just her littlest finger, poking under the crack. Curls her own around it, like a pinkie swear.
Elsa hears Anna's surprise in the shuffling behind the door. Yet she makes no motion to pull away. She wraps her finger around Elsa's. Elsa wonders if she can feel it too- the sunshine spilling through her from the touch of her smallest finger, illuminating her all the way to her toes.
Nothing's changed, really. She's still a witch. But for these few, brief moments- the storm blown out, sat in a spot of of sunshine with her sister- Princess Elsa feels happy enough to die.
And that's all.