Systrar
It is winter again, and the palace is settling into its familiar, desolate silence when I hear your midsection crack open.
It's a pathetic, withered noise that isn't even loud enough to startle. If I had been in another part of the palace I would have missed it entirely. Funny how the sound reminds me of dry twigs crackling, tinder sputtering in a fire. I can hardly remember what warmth feels like anymore. I urgently hurry to your side, on the edge of frantic. Blessedly, your body protests no further in the time it takes me to reach you.
I clinically assess the angry fissure that now snakes across your waist like a gaping varicose. This is not the first time you've tried to come apart, but this is the worst I've seen yet. I daintily place a hand on your frozen form, fearful that you might not last.
I still wonder why our love wasn't enough.
That I was wrong all those years ago is not in question. I've recounted our last meeting frequently; I don't have much in this palace except for memories. It's painful to remember your final heartfelt pleas- your blind faith that I could bend the curse to my benefit and save the kingdom. I should have heeded you, believed in your confidence that the eternal winter I had wrought could be reversed. Instead I had let the fear completely overtake me, grip my entire being and shamefully yank the pretended self-confidence away to reveal the little girl still unable to conquer herself.
I don't know what had doomed you... us. But if there is something to be blamed, it is the curse. The curse that had become stronger than any of us could have believed. The emotions that had tumbled through my insides rattled my control over my powers, distracted me into believing the nausea I felt were feelings to be repressed and concealed; not magic wishing to erupt. It had bubbled painfully in me, a chaotic, diffuse heaviness, and I had splintered it and pushed it out and away. When the weight had lifted I felt relief, until I saw what I had uncaged. Until I saw an icy pellet of magic pierce you like it had done when we played together as children, snapping your head backwards with such suddenness that I had nearly believed you had died on the spot. Your hair had instantly wilted to an ashen white, not the white of snow but of bones and decrepit pearl. Your breath condensed to an icy mist as you collapsed, and by the time I had reached your side it had stilled altogether. Your lips, frostbitten, had formed words I would never hear. Seconds more and you became as you are now, a frozen effigy, a sister of winter that I had wept pitifully against until my tears had frosted painfully to my cheeks. I have not moved you since.
The crack is not deep, thankfully. It won't be like your arm, which had nearly snapped clean a year into your petrified condition. I had been fortunate to steady it before it could shatter to the floor. Piecing together a thousand shards of you would have driven me mad, not from the tedium, but knowing with each flake I tried to fit together I would be reminded that you broke under my care. Yet sanity or not, I still would have done it. I would do anything for you.
I trace my finger cautiously across your frozen hips, imagining a heat that isn't there. A trail of frost follows my index, sealing the break. This task requires only seconds, but I am careful with you, making sure nothing is missed. My magic has developed, exceeding what little control I previously had. Now a mere thought, and not a wave of the hand, can fulfill most of my wishes. But the growth has left the products fragile, unstable. The interiors of the palace hiss with a brittle weakness during summer; I've had to glass the walls with ice regularly. And what winters from my hands are usually twisted, unkind shapes outside of my intention. That is why I concentrate deeply as I repair you, to ensure that you remain beautiful and at peace.
Your traveling companion (Kristopher? Kristian? I cannot recall) and Olaf had left shortly after you were entombed. There had been little argument; all three of us were so panicked that we immediately agreed it was best to seek help for you. I had trusted them to the task, believing that they would prioritize your life over anything else. But my next visitors had not been rescuers, though when I witnessed that Hans character and a significant contingent braving the mountain for a moment I had believed in fate's benevolence. It was hardly seconds before they had entered the palace that the assassins uncovered their crossbows, firing with every intent to slay me. Truthfully I have wondered if my death could have been a solution, a manner to lift the curse's effects on you. But I was cowardly, as I always am, and the fear that a wayward arrow could have shattered you, coupled with the belief that I loved you more than any of these supposed rescuers, drove me to a fierce protection. I had not wished to encase them in a frozen grave- but the attack had been so sudden, the betrayal so unexpected, and their numbers so great that my panic had overwhelmed any resistance from my conscience. After that assault I had spun into existence as many icy guards as I could muster to patrol the palace, then completely barricaded myself in. Even the doors to my beloved balcony, the only place I had felt the distant warmth of the sun, have been frozen shut.
I am jolted from my thoughts by a shadowy form at the room's entrance. It is so startling that when my finger lifts from your midsection a sharp, angry icicle chases after it. For a weak moment I think I see you at the doorway, with your innocent smile, warmed by life. My dry, cold eyes nearly fill with tears, tears that would be hotter than the sun I dream jealously of. But a heartbeat later and I see it's another you, not a sister of winter but a sister of snow, born from my very own hands. The other you idles at the doorway with a bundle of herbs and edibles it had collected from the outside.
I motion it closer. The other you enters the room, each step a muffled crunch of snow to ice. The creation is timid, demure- not like you. Just an experiment when I had become truly lonely, when I had nearly grown mad from isolation. I had tried to create companions, something resembling humans. But I could not create anything resembling true life. They were all caricatures, sketches of emotions I imagined others to have. I had been deprived of people for too long in my youth to properly model them. The other you is more what you represent to me than who you are. I wouldn't know how to create something like you. Nothing is like you.
The other you shyly offers its collected bounty to me. The edible plants remain embedded in its arms like tenacious saplings and I absently pluck them from its powdery limbs. The other you cares for me, as you would have. Once, I had thought of breaking it apart so I could be alone and free to pass on, but the thought of losing you twice, even if it was just an incomplete you, had stilled my hand.
The other you leaves after being assured I had taken what I needed, and an indistinct pang needles my chest when it departs. I ascertain what I had been left with: herbs, plants. What little could be found, in this hostile winter. A palm more than a handful, but it's enough to last me for weeks. The curse has advanced such that I rarely feel hungry. I've grown so cold inside I wonder if anything human remains; if there is still blood inside, something hot, something to remind me that it is not a frozen nightmare that I mime through with each passing season.
I take a single, ruby cowberry and place it in my mouth. Shards of ice crackle between my teeth, as if I'm gnawing on diamonds. The icicle that had formed during my incomplete mending gives the macabre impression you've been pierced through. I delicately snap the unwanted protrusion at the base and finish my work.
You would have been a wonderful princess. You would have been adored. You would have found love. But Arendelle is surely lost forever, buried like our parents, not at sea but swallowed by sleet. By a curse you never feared, because you believed in me. With your strength, maybe we could have conquered it. Maybe.
I run my hand across your neck. It's smooth, smoother than the marble sculptures about the castle we grew up in. You're still solid, real. The only thing that tethers me to this world.
"Anna. I love you," I whisper shakily into the dark indentation of your frozen ear. This ice will last. The winters have been getting longer, and my power is still manageable. Perhaps it will envelop me someday, but that could be for the best. My emotions could finally die. I would finally no longer need to feel.
I kiss your cheek. I'm unable to sense the cold upon my lips, unable to give you even a sister's warmth, and I deserve this torture, knowing I can never love you as I should.
-End-