Anna swallowed and wondered again if she should. If she dared. She took a look at the hairpin in her right hand, clammed between her fingers, and looked back to the lock in front of her.
It was really pretty. Not that she'd expect any less, of course. She didn't remember much of what her sister looked like, but she remembered her pretty blue eyes and silky silver hair that would catch the light's reflection just like the snow would when winter fell and they had gone out to build a snowman.
She often wondered if Elsa was as pretty as snow, but she always came to the same conclusion, she couldn't decide. Anna wasn't very good at making decisions. Something she was experiencing right now.
Kristoff had told her how to pick a lock, just for fun, and she'd tried it on nearly all the broom closets in the castle, and her own door, several times. Now she was standing in front of another door, where she'd stood many times before, rejected. This time, no one would reject her.
She bit her lip in concentration and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, leaning over the lock, staring at it with eyes that had curiously become greener over the years, replacing the icy blue she was born with. The same blue her sister's eyes had, she remembered vividly. She wondered if hers had changed colour, too.
Mentally shaking her thoughts from her head (not really, because that would be silly), she pried the hairpin into the lock with ease that was only achieved after many, many attempts.
Her heart leapt into her throat as she waited nervously for the small click as she forced the metal into the resisting keyhole. A small victory smile appeared on her face as she heard it, almost inaudible, but there nevertheless. Then, the nerves struck again. She waited a few seconds in complete silence and stillness, not sure if she hoped that her sister had heard her, or the opposite.
Her fingers trembled as she retracted the pin from the lock and slid it back into her hair. She slid her tongue over her front teeth as she collected all of her courage. Sadly, it wasn't enough, so she decided to knock first. She could walk in later, when she wouldn't get a reply, she reasoned.
A nagging part of her that she preferred to ignore suggested an idea again, a thought that had crossed her mind many times. What if she was dead? What if Anna would walk inside to find a decayed, frozen corpse there, starved or died from lack of social contact, or boredom.
Anna didn't know if that was possible, but it seemed like a plausible option, dying from being alone for so long. She was pretty sure she wouldn't survive that. She remembered how her sister's eyes used to shine when Anna convinced her to play in the middle of the night, and she prayed silently that she would see those eyes again without the glaze of death weakening them.
She figured she had waited long enough without getting an answer to her timid knocks, so she collected some more courage and finally pushed open the door.
