My son came up with the premise of this story. He's been battling a bit of depression and I think he finds comfort in the stories he makes up in his head but he assumes other people will think they're silly. Not so my little man, not so.
I don't own I don't profit.
The wolves always showed up at night.
They'd appear in greater numbers at times when her control was weak, ice streaking from her footsteps as she paced her room, worrying the gloves between her fingers. Because she was suffocating and trapped and their was no escape. No end to all this misery.
She was alone.
Just her and these wolves who would stare up through her window longingly. They never howled; they hardly moved. They sat and they waited. For what Elsa wasn't sure but they were a constant in her life. And the princess depended on constants.
She tried to tell her maids, insisted with her parents that a pack of wolves were making their way into the courtyard and watching her every move.
"It's just the stress Elsa, it's making you see things." Her parents assured her.
"Wolves don't come into the city! They're afraid of people m'lady." Gerda would respond as she laid out Elsa's meal.
But they weren't afraid of her. Night after night they showed up. Sometimes dozens, more often only a handful but without fail they appeared. Once Elsa tried to scare them away with a demonstration of her powers. She opened the panes of glass and shot a single stream of ice at the nearest set of paws. Just a warning, she never wanted to hurt anyone again, even if they were beasts who belonged in the mountains.
Instead of jumping away frightened like she expected, like a human would, they eagerly surged forward, fighting over the spot where the ice had hit; growling at each other as they pushed and tussled into a quickly thawing patch of stone. It was the only time she had seen them act like wild animals and the first time she had heard them emit any noise. Initially it was the customary howls and snarls but as they pressed in they began to cry. A horrid, frightful noise that sounded like the moans of humans.
Like the whimpers her sister let out when Elsa demanded she go away.
She slammed the windows closed and slumped to the floor. Shakily she buried her face into her arms trying to erase the memory of those mournful wails. The noise was still ringing in her ears the next morning when she woke to Gerda gently shaking her.
After that she didn't interact with the wolves again. She could hear them coming as the sun set and leaving before dawn approached but she never looked and she never opened the window.
As she got older and the anxiety pressed in, stealing her breath away; she thought of going out there. Laying in the courtyard as the wolves teared at her, ripping her life away in ribbons until all that remained was ice and sorrow. Or maybe they would make her one of their own, stealing her away to the mountain where there was nothing but solitude.
But she was a princess, and princess's did not entertain thoughts of death or running away. So she kept at her lessons, she dutifully ignored Anna while trying to retain a flimsy control over the storm that brewed under the surface. Elsa was a good girl.
The wolves showed up every night. And the heir of Arendelle wondered if perhaps they did so because they knew a monster when they saw one.
And monsters always keep to their own.