Brisk footsteps from outside the door. A pair of green eyes fluttered open and the young man to whom they belonged listened until he could no longer hear the clomp clomp of the wayward sailor's boots. Then he threw aside the covers and quickly dressed, throwing a cloak over his clothes.

Quietly slipping out of his room, he walked up to another door and pressed his ear to it. Hearing nothing, he attempted to push it open, but the doorknob rattled in his grip; the door was locked. Frowning, he reached into his pocket.

Ordinarily, he could have just used his key. But today he wanted to have some fun; he took out a lockpick instead and began to pick the lock. All the while, he had his ear to the door to make sure that its occupant, if present, remained asleep.

Working the pick through the last stages of the lock, he strained his ears further until he heard one final click. Smiling, he twisted the doorknob and stepped inside. He glanced at the bed, but saw no one. He must be on deck, then, he thought to himself as he strode to the desk. He spied his target and tutted absentmindedly; why leave it out where anyone could see it? He had to be expecting something like this. He swiped an envelope from where it rested and replaced it with a sheet of paper.

Locking the door, he popped open the porthole and slipped out, grasping a rope that he had let hang low earlier. He climbed up to the deck and peeked over the guardrail. Seeing no one, he climbed up and went for the crow's nest.

"Mis-Aeron."

Aeron froze. Then he relaxed and casually turned around. "You asked for me, brother?"

He met the serious blue-eyed gaze of his brother Aksel, whose features were remarkably similar to his own, barring the difference in their eye colors. "What are you doing up so late?"

"I could ask the same of you. As for me, I was about to go for a nighttime flight."

Aksel looked him up and down. "So I see. But why in your full flight garb? It's summertime. You'd only need it at cloud-level or above."

Aeron mentally cursed his brother's perfect memory. "Yeah, I want a bird's eye view of Arendelle as we approach it."

A raised eyebrow. "Aeron, you'd need to get over the mountains in order to see Arendelle from here. Especially since we missed Arendelle entirely because you pushed the ship so quickly." Then those eyes narrowed. "You'd better not be trying to do that. Even your flight garb can't protect you from that."

"Are you so certain?" Aeron drawled, glancing up to the crow's nest. As usual, his glider sat on its special perch.

Aksel's eyes widened. "Aeron!" he hissed. "You can't seriously be thinking of doing that! You can't just keep pushing yourself and taking such stupid risks for enjoyment!"

"The heights never bother me, Aksel. You know that. Not the height, not the temperature, not the lack of air, nothing. Just like the depths never bother you for the same reasons."

"It's still idiotic!" his brother insisted. "There's no reason to do it."

Aeron just shrugged. "I'll see you at Arendelle," he said, clapping Aksel on the back. He sprang onto the mast and scaled upwards like he was flying rather than climbing.

"Aeron! Come back here right this minute!" Aksel shouted, not bothering to keep his voice down.

"Keep quiet, your princeliness, or you'll disturb more than the sleeping," Aeron replied, glancing at the water below, which had begun to stir angrily. "Besides, we're twins. You can't order me around like an older sibling. I'm off, Aksel." Not wanting to hear a reply, Aeron launched into the air. At that moment, the wind whipped up and carried him to the sky.

Aksel watched him soar higher and higher and scowled. "I should've guessed he wouldn't listen," he sighed, too tired to care anymore. He went below decks and went to his room. Yawning, he opened his door and went to his desk with the intent to pick up a book and read until he fell asleep.

Instead, his fatigue was rather rudely blown away by a single sheet of paper.

Aksel grasped the sheet so tightly that it crumpled. "Aeron."

"AEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

"Ah, music to my ears," Aeron sighed, grinning as he flew higher and higher, his goggles now over his eyes. The wind got fiercer and fiercer as he climbed; the temperature colder and colder; the air thinner and thinner. But he didn't turn back; the height never bothered him anyway.

He pulled a lever beside him so the glider could balance on its own. Then he looked down at his palm, where a compass was sewn into his glove. Hmm, I'm going a little too far west. Using his other hand, he adjusted his course.

He flew for a few minutes, adjusting this way and that when he felt it. A sudden yet subtle change in the atmosphere, only noticeable by those who knew the sky like he did. Though the temperature was much the same, the chill felt different. More…alive. He grinned; he didn't need a compass or a map anymore. He could feel where he needed to go in his bones, the bones that people swore should've belonged to a bird rather than a human.

He switched the balancing to manual, allowing him to use both hands to maneuver. He laughed aloud as he swept through the air much faster and nimbler than before.

Then he turned his glider and his eyes towards what he felt was the center of the living freeze. Arendelle, here I come.

Anna.

"Mmmmph."

Anna!

Princess Anna of Arendelle groaned and dug even further into her covers.

"Wake up!" Anna felt the touch of a pair of hands through her blanket, as well as a gentle but noticeable chill wherever they touched.

"Elsa, go back to sleeeee *zzssnore*," Anna muttered; she had fallen back to sleep in the middle of her sentence.

Elsa giggled into her hand and shook her head. She flopped down next to Anna, once again shaking her loose from her slumber. "I can't," she sighed dramatically. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to…" she glanced at Anna expectantly as she trailed off.

Anna cracked an eye open. "Play?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, that would have to come after our duties for the day," Elsa said, assuming her queenly façade for a moment.

"Awwww, come on Elsa!" Anna whined.

"No objections."

Anna harrumphed. "Then go do your duties by yourself," she muttered, turning over and burrowing back under the covers.

"I'm sure I can...persuade you to rise," she heard her sister purr. A chill ran down her spine; she could practically hear her sister grinning devilishly in that statement. A moment later, she burst into uncontrollable laughter as Elsa tickled her sides. She tried to get away, but Elsa's grip was firm. After a few minutes, when Elsa finally lifted her fingers from the princess' skin, Anna was gasping for breath and still giggling in the aftermath. "Do you surrender?" Anna nodded, too lacking in breath to speak. "Good." She made the mistake of turning away. The princess smirked and threw her arms around the startled queen and yanked her into bed alongside her. "Anna!"

"Just a few more minutes," her sister murmured. Elsa sighed and, after a moment of debate, gave in and twisted in Anna's embrace; admittedly, the Snow Queen couldn't get enough of cuddling with her younger sister. She did however pause to send a cold gust of wind to ring a bell at Anna's bedside, calling a servant to inform the kitchen to bring up breakfast.

"What do you have to do today?" Anna asked.

Elsa rattled off the entire list of meetings, ranging from inventory checks to gauging the size of the treasury to analyzing the state of public facilities. "Also, I don't want to alarm you, but there's an emissary from the Southern Isles due in the next few days." Elsa could feel Anna tense up against her. "Yeah. I don't really like it either," she admitted, "But the last time they contacted us they were apologetic enough."

There was a knock at the door, and Elsa reluctantly rose to get their breakfast. Muttering under her breath, Anna got up too. Elsa thanked the servant at the door and took the tray from her, setting it on the table at Anna's bedside. Brightening at the sight of food, Anna happily snatched up a plate and began loading it with her favorites. Seeing no choice, Elsa quickly followed suit before Anna could get everything.

"What did they say in their last message?" Anna asked after swallowing. She bit into a small breakfast pastry.

Elsa swallowed a mouthful of sausage. "Hans will be brought to justice. That was the gist of it. After all the apologies."

"Great. Hey!" Anna protested when Elsa snatched up something she wanted. "Oh, whatever." She chose something else. "What's their idea of 'justice' exactly?"

"I'm not totally sure. Presumably, they'll strip him of his title and banish him. Or put him to work doing something undesirable."

They finished their breakfast and set aside the tray. "Alright. I need to look presentable. Care to help?" Anna asked, walking to her wardrobe.

"Of course." Going to help her, Elsa suddenly paused and looked out the windows. "Something wrong, Elsa?"

"Just...I don't know," Elsa muttered. "Something seems different about the air today."

Anna threw open a window, leaned out a bit, and closed her eyes. "Seems the same to me. Ooh, that's a nice breeze," she sighed. "What do you mean different?"

"I can't really explain it," Elsa admitted, joining her sister at the window and leaning out. This is a nice breeze, she thought to herself. "It just feels more...alive today. Sort of like how I can tell the difference between my snow and natural snow, do you know what I mean?"

"A little." And Anna did. There was something inexplicably different about the snow and ice born from nature and that born by the queen's powers. "Hey are you gonna help me get dressed or not?" Elsa laughed and began to sort through Anna's wardrobe.

Perhaps if they'd continued looking outwards, they might have noticed a dark shape flit in and out of the clouds, or a whisper of laughter carried by the wind.

Notes from the Author:

Here's a Frozen Fic. This was first published at the very end of the very first Elsanna Week on Tumbler, so I thought I'd mix a little bit of each prompt of the week into the first few chapters. This one was "Cuddles". Enjoy! Also please forgive me for uploading the wrong document earlier; it didn't save my changes last time, so I had no idea that there were no cuddles remaining in this chapter when I first uploaded it Q.Q

Aeron Solo