They were wrong
It's never easy to realise that your parents can be wrong. To realise that, actually, they don't know everything, cannot keep you safe forever and do fall prey to the same human emotions that you experience as a child. Even fear.
For Anna it was a hard revelation to come to, particularly since her parents had died before she went through the natural process most teenagers do. Their memory was protected in reverence and mourning, and it was only after everything had happened with Elsa that she had realised.
Her sister had sat her down and told her what had happened when they were little and why she had shut the door. She told her about the room and the ice and the fear.
"But Mother and Father were there," Anna murmured from her spot on the floor, curled up in front of the fire. She couldn't get enough of the heat; a lingering side effect from the paralysing cold when the ice had touched her heart. More psychological than physical.
"They were there to stop the fear. Love is stronger, right." She remembered her nightmares and waking up screaming about monsters in the dark (they were going to eat Elsa) but there was always a pair of arms wrapped around her, keeping her close. Mother or Father, as solid warmth in the dark, chasing the fear away with love.
Elsa looked at her in surprise, stunned by her comment.
"No, Anna. I was dangerous. I might have hurt them," she sighed sadly and looked down at her now uncovered hands. "I told them to stay away."
Anna gave an unladylike snort at that and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but they didn't, right?" She looked at Elsa's expression and her tone lowered. "I didn't."
"Not everyone is as reckless as you Anna." Elsa retorted sharply.
Anna blinked in shock. "I wasn't reckless! Well, maybe I was a little bit reckless, but I wasn't really being reckless because I knew you were just scared and I love you and…"
"Goodnight Anna," Elsa cut her off sharply and left the room.
Shocked and hurt Anna replayed the scene. Her parents hadn't hugged Elsa through her fear. They hadn't comforted her or challenged her. They had let their own fear overrule love and had left their eldest daughter feeling isolated. Anna remembered their arms around her and ached at the revelation that Elsa had not. Even more terrifying was that her older sister still believed that they had done the right thing, which meant it was her, Anna's, job to help Elsa see sense.
Older sister's, she remembered too late, were stubborn.
"We are not discussing this Anna!"
"But Elsa…"
Time and again her sister walked away, and each occasion Anna felt her frustration build until she finally snapped. Gentle cajoling turned into full on yelling, no longer caring what she said as long as Elsa just listened.
"Elsa, look what happened to you!" Anna shouted desperately at her sister's retreating back. "You were so afraid and so alone that you froze the whole of Arendale and hid in the mountains…"
"That's enough Anna!" her sister snapped back, ice crackling around her hands.
The redhead didn't back down.
"Our – parents – were – wrong," she spelt it out.
"No! Our parents…were scared," Elsa's voice trailed off till it was barely a whisper. "They were scared of me and they were right to be." Tears sparkled at the corners of her eyes like icicles and the air was sharp with frost.
Anna shook her head vigorously and stamped across the now icy ground that separated them.
"No." A simple word. "They were our parents Elsa, and they were wrong. They are no longer with us, but they were still wrong."
"Why are you doing this?" Elsa whispered, her voice cracking. "They are gone Anna. Why are you trying to destroy their memory?"
"Because," Anna felt tears well in her eyes, "because if you think what they did was right then you might do it again."
There was a silence, ringing in the cold air, echoing. The teardrops were crystals on Anna's cheeks as she stared her sister down, desperate for her to understand. Elsa stood in shock, eyes wide, one hand up protectively as though trying to push Anna away.
"Do it again?"
Anna stepped forward and grabbed the outstretched hand in her own. The chill bit down to the bone but she shrugged the shudder off.
"You might shut me out again the next time you are worried or scared, and then you'll be all alone, and so will I."
Elsa lowered their joined hands, her skin warming.
"You wouldn't be alone, you'd have Kristoff."
The face Anna pulled made Elsa smile.
"A boy. You think I'd exchange my only sister for a boy?" She looked worried suddenly. "I mean, I love Kristoff, and I don't want him to go anywhere, well obviously not anywhere, just not with anyone, except me, but…" she took a breath to stop the flow, "I just mean, I need you as well."
The room had warmed by degrees, the ice melting. Anna grasped Elsa's other hand in her own and stared into her sister's eyes.
"Mother and Father were wonderful, and they did their best, Elsa, but they weren't right. Love should have won sooner."
"They did what I asked them to," Elsa's voice trembled.
Anna gave a sad, lop-sided smile.
"Elsa, you were a child."
Elsa's lip trembled, her eyes welled up and, as Anna wrapped her arms around her, she cried for the first time. For their lost childhood. For their lost parents.
As she finished she stepped away from the warm circle of Anna's arms, her eyes washed clear like an ice lake after rain. She smiled a little.
"I understand Anna," she told her younger sister and the redhead beamed in relief.
"Let's go visit them together" she suggested impulsively, "we haven't done that before," and after only a slight hesitation Elsa nodded.
"Yes. Let's."