"Elsa?"
A quiet voice. Bright. Filled with optimism. An optimism which she, the elder, the sensible sister with the great skills and plans, could barely grasp.
It was there, she knew. But she could only graze its edges, as a ghost tries to touch life; as it attempts to remember, puzzled, what it could have been.
On their knees. A circle, made real on the floor. In crusted shards the frost glows white, inscriptions intricately carved inside the circumference. Clouds of frost hang suspended in the air with each breath – the room is cold, so cold, in order to avoid the circle melting; but she is so sure that it will work. They both are.
So when Elsa turns her head to see her little sister, looking at her so expectantly with eyes that know no fear, she allows herself a moment to push the concern to the back of her mind.
It will work. We will see them again.
So she just looks at her sister, carefully, as the younger remembers herself and begins to speak.
"We're gonna build a snowman, right?"
Her eyes immediately dart down, to the hands which hover, gloveless, centimetres from the floor. She pictures them crackling with cold fire. She imagines them creating something.
"Yes," she says, immediately. "Yeah."
It isn't much, but it is enough to make her sister's face light up; that is what spurs her on.
"Come on." She indicates down. "Let's go. Let's do it."
Inside the circle, layered with frost in the chill of the empty palace walls, lay the ingredients necessary to make two human beings. Meticulously measured, weighed and placed, the symbols glowing with frost, the words perfectly carved icicles. All the measurements perfect.
There is nothing that can go wrong. It won't. It can't. No chance that in a moment, a single moment, they will not see both of their parents once again; standing before them, smiling, open arms waiting to welcome her once again. Her sister will smile, and cry. She will cry too, but the crying is for a different reason. She won't touch them, for fear they might be hurt, but they will understand; they will be able to help her master it. Control it.
And in a way, bringing them back will be proof of her proficiency.
She murmurs the syllables, and beside her her sister does the same.
They share a glance, for a second, and then their palms touch the circumference.
Before them, the circle crackles and glows.
Then there is light. A terrible, painful light.
And a scream.
"Elsa!"
"Anna!"
The scream is pure, piercing ice. An ungloved hand shoots out – desperate, reaching – and another, and then – she almost fades out again, with the agonising pain that is in her leg.
There is nothing where something should have been. A sheet of impermeable frost coats the floor, spreading up the walls, to the ceiling; it crackles and spurts with energy. Her red cloak is draped over her, half off, as she lays sprawled on the floor; it shields her eyes from the disaster that lies beneath. It is not at the forefront of her mind.
She saw her sister go. She saw her sister die.
Her arm feels wet. She barely registers it. There is a sharp coldness, as well, and sparing a glance at it – between her tense, laboured gasps – she sees that it is indeed stained red. But it is unnaturally cold. With the small semblance of reason she still possesses, she turns her gaze ahead, to see a puddle, nothing but a puddle, on the ground –
Which is none of her concern, really, right now, because her sister is dead.
"Anna!" Her eyes flick – uncontrollably – to another puddle to her left, this one stained an entirely different colour. It matches the one on her arm.
Her eyes widen; they squeeze tight, closed; she cannot, will not accept it.
"Please." She is not sure if she says the words in her head or her heart or through her mouth, out into the open air. But she makes them known as she lowers her fingertips to her leg (or what was once her leg; it is so hard to tell now, and she does not want to know), and dips her fingertips in the liquid, as she voices the words, aloud or within.
"Give back my sister." In front of her, without looking at what she is drawing onto, she creates a symbol. She swallows. "She's all I have left."
There is nothing – nothing but her thin, shallow, weakening breathing. And then everything happens.
Now she stands before a gate.
The gate opens.
She only gets a moment, and then it is gone.
A moment is all she needs.
"Anna – oh god, Anna –"
Her eyes flash open – the light is gone, thank goodness – from nightmare to nightmare she travels and this scene is no different, except this time something extraordinary is before her.
She stares.
Nothing can be created out of nothing. There is a deep, throbbing pain in her right arm – but it does not matter, it fades into the background.
Because there is something before her.
And she tries to laugh, because it is so laughable, so ironic, so cruel that things should end up like this – and in here things feel like winter; it is cold, it is freezing, it is just as well – as a figure, pure white, perfect, moves towards her. She thinks it is a ghost. It is not a ghost.
She cries, because she created something, after all.
The figure, which is no similar in shape or size to what is was before, reaches out an arm towards her, and it is thin and wooden.
"Sister?"
Her head falls, and she sobs, uncontrollably.
Because she built a snowman, after all.