Goddamn it's been a while. How many of you had forgotten I existed? :P
It's been an age, and my writing muscles seriously needed flexing, and... c'mon, how amazing is Frozen? I only got around to it recently, so I felt I owed it a little something.
So: 2nd person Elsa's perspective, a little look inside her mind.
This fic is dedicated to AubreyNotAubrey, go and check her out, she's a much better writer than me.
You know the exact landscape of the cracks on your bedroom ceiling.
You've lost count of the number of hours you've spent following them with your eyes, back braced against the door and knees tucked up to your chest. From this position all you can see outside your window is the sky. Not the multitudes of animals scurrying to and fro in the undergrowth, not the trees, with their bright spring blossom or their autumn headdresses of gold and brown or their gnarled winter nakedness. You cannot see the incessant signs of life that caper about in the grounds, separated from you by a single pane of glass. A pane of glass that represents the insurmountable canyon of your mind.
If you close your eyes tightly and concentrate, you can still feel the summer grass between your bare toes and the tickle of a bug crawling across your arm. You can see the sunlight glinting off Anna's hair and hear her high, harmonious laughter.
And then you see the single streak of white amongst the gold, and bile rises in the back of your throat.
The memory of that streak gave you nightmares for months.
"Elsa?" You start like a frightened pony and scramble away from the door as the sound of your sister's voice drifts through the polished wood. You curl into a little ball on the floor, clamping your hands over your ears in a desperate bid to shut her out.
"Elsa, please come out." her voice refuses to be silenced, and her pleading tone strikes something within you, making your chest ache. "It's such beautiful weather outside, we should enjoy it..." her sigh of defeat is far louder than should be possible, "Do you even know what today is, Elsa?"
Do you even know what today is? How could you not? How could there be any possibility that you'd woken up not knowing the significance of this day?
It had been exactly a year. One year since that black-rimmed letter had arrived at the gates, one year since both of you had learned that mother and father would not be coming home. You'd never lost control of your powers as badly as you did that day.
You glance towards the door, knowing your baby sister is just on the other side. What must she be going through? You long to stand up, to open the door and pull the young woman into your arms for the first time in years. To say how are you doing? And to tuck her hair behind her ear. Does she still wear it in pigtails? Are all her dresses still varying shades of green? Did she cry last night, will she tonight, or does she keep it all bottled up and tucked away?
You feel a burning rage flare up inside you. Goddammit, you're her sister. You should know all of this already, and more besides, because that's what sisters do.
Would it really be so dangerous to open the door? Just this once, to lay eyes on the person you miss like a hole in your heart? Today of all days, when you both need each other so badly, would it really be such a crime?
You take a deep breath, clamber to your feet, and take a purposeful stride towards the door.
The moment your foot lands ice shoots out in all directions, a blanket of frost covering the wood.
"Catch me!"
"Wait, you're going too fast... No! Anna!"
You stager backward, tears stinging your eyes. "Go away Anna, please." you choke out. There's a moment of silence, then the sound of footsteps walking slowly away. You fall back to your knees, hands fisting in your hair and body jerking with sobs.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?"
You still remember the childish excitement in her voice. The childish excitement that, as the months and years went by outside your window, slowly turned to hesitation and to hurt.
That question – Do you wanna build a snowman? – had brought you the closest you'd ever come to hating her. Why can't she understand that she's asking the one thing in the world that you want more than anything, perhaps more than mother and father back again, but the one thing you can never do? Why can't she just see how much she's asking of you, why can't she get it...
You roll onto your back, staring up at the cracks, hating yourself more than you've ever hated anything. Anna was so gentle and sweet and deserves so much better than you, so much more than a big sister too weak to control herself, who has to hide behind doors and gloves unless she kills someone...
It starts to rain outside, splotching the window with droplets. The weather is always changing, always shifting. The world is always shifting. Growing and altering and moving on, whilst you are stuck in this room, left behind. The cracks in your ceiling are the only fixed points, the only things you can rely on to stay the same.
Seasons shift, paint becomes dull and starts peeling, your baby sister grows into a young adult. But the cracks on the ceiling, like the cracks across your heart, will always be there.
You'll never build another snowman, but the cracks in the ceiling don't care. They gaze down impassively at the frost and the snow and the ice that expels from your fingers, never once concerned.
What kind of monster must I be, you think to yourself, as rain drums on the walls outside, if the cracks in the ceiling are the only things I haven't managed to drive away?
This work is unbeta'd. If you enjoyed it, do me a favour and please don't read any of my previous fics. :P