Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only, rights belong to Disney, etc.
A/n: I wrote this for the Single Ladies Fic Challenge at The Beta Branch last month. I actually had been working on something entirely different when inkspire told me about an alert she'd gotten for a Frozen fic. I hadn't even considered there was fic out there for Frozen (don't ask me how that happened, I have no idea), and then as this plot bunny hit me like a freight train, I tossed out the other thing I was working on and did this instead. So anyways, inkspire, I blame you. ;)
Come Morning Light (Safe & Sound)
Elsa spent most of her life to this point gripped by fear. Ever since the day of the accident, ever since Anna's memories had been changed, she's been choking on terror that everything would be lost if she made one more mistake.
Conceal, don't feel. It becomes her mantra, her life. Every thought, every action comes from it, comes through it. Hide. Supress. Wear a mask. Lock it away. Be as impenetrable as the ice she cannot let herself create.
She imagines her heart locked in bands of iron, unable to grow, unable to be shown. She creates a cage in her mind to hold in every single thought, every urge, every shade of emotion. Those things can only come out in the tiniest way, under her strict control, she tells herself. It is the only way: the only way to keep her sister safe, to keep herself safe, and to keep her kingdom safe.
Because one mistake is all it will take. One moment, one slip up, one tiny second of misplaced focus, and everything she has will be lost. She can never feel safe, never feel secure – because that would require emotion and emotions are a luxury Elsa cannot afford.
One night, she is alone in her room. She is so lonely it's a physical ache that gnaws at her insides. She thinks maybe, to ease it, she could go and play with Anna just this once. Just for a little while – she's been doing so well at controlling her powers, after all. She hasn't had an incident in weeks.
Elsa scoops up her gloves, and heads for the door, her heart racing with anticipation. It's been ages since she's been with her sister, and she knows how badly Anna wants to see her. Elsa smiles, but when she reaches for the doorknob, frost spiders out from the metal handle.
"No," she whispers and fights the tingling in her fingers, in her arms. "No, no…"
Tears prick her eyes and she blinks them back fiercely. Not today, she thinks. Please let me have one day.
The frost spreads rapidly across the door, thickening and crackling. The more Elsa tries to tamp down her powers and dissolve the cold, the more it grows. It jumps from the doorframe to the walls, the ceiling, the floors, shining and sparkling. It fans in a thin layer across her window, dimming the sunlight previously pouring in, washing it out to a pale gleam.
And then Anna is there – she hadn't heard her come in, hadn't heard the door open. How did she open the door with all the snow and ice?
Elsa feels like all the air has disappeared from the room as her sister takes in the ice everywhere with wide, frightened eyes.
"Elsa…" she breathes, and to Elsa's horror, her sister is visibly disgusted. Shocked, repulsed. "What are you?"
Elsa shakes her head and tears spill down her cheeks. Her hands vibrate, her heart aches, her chest is too tight, why isn't there any air –
Anna's skin is blue, and the white stripe in her hair is glowing. "What have you done to me?" she asks, her voice low and furious – Elsa has never heard anything so terrible.
"It…" Elsa gasps, fighting for words, but her tongue is heavy and sluggish. "It… was an accident – "
Anna begins to scream, a frightening, piercing wail that gets louder and louder. Ice is forming at her feet, moving up Anna's legs, towards her waist, and her scream increases. Elsa fights to reach her sister, but her feet are frozen to the ground too, and the room is closing in, ice is coating every surface, building and snapping, snow is swirling, it's so hard to see – if she could only get to Anna, save her!
Tears are pouring from Anna's eyes, freezing instantly on her unbearably blue cheeks, the ice is covering her chest, reaching for her neck, and she's still screaming…
"Elllsaaa…"
"Elsa. Elsa."
"No!" Elsa shrieks.
"Elsa, it's okay, wake up."
Her sister's voice finally properly penetrates the nightmare, and Elsa sits up so fast, she nearly smashes heads with Anna. Elsa is coated in sweat, her whole body is trembling and she swears she can still hear her sister's scream echoing in her ears.
"Hey," Anna grips her hand, and her warm fingers wrap tight around Elsa's chilled ones. "Hey, it's okay. You're alright."
Elsa meets her sister's eyes, trying to calm her breathing. "I'm sorry," she chokes out. "Anna, I'm so sorry."
"It was just a dream," Anna assures her. "Everything is fine."
Elsa hastily throws her arms around Anna's neck, pulling her close, assuring herself that her sister is alive, and real. Warm.
Her heart rate begins to slow and she tries not to cry too heavily into Anna's bright red hair. Just a dream, she reminds herself, echoing Anna's words. Everything is fine. Just a dream.
It's been a couple weeks since the incident where she froze Arendelle, and though everything has since turned out alright, Elsa still struggles. Though during the day she finds it increasingly easier to be herself with no concerns, the night has become her enemy, attacking her with old fears. Few nights go by where she doesn't have nightmares that somehow involve the death of her sister as a result of losing control of her powers.
Sometimes those dreams consist of her destroying Arendelle in its entirety: Elsa exits the castle to find a frozen wasteland with icy corpses of people she knows, still as statues in terrified poses. Sometimes the dreams are of the townspeople rebelling against her for possessing unnatural magic, capturing her, torturing her, and burning her at the stake like the witches in old stories.
Elsa finds herself waking up screaming more often than not, feeling panicked and ashamed. She is safe, she is free, and yet the dreams still plague her. Pin her down, drag her under.
Anna holds her without complaint, without judgement. She comes to comfort Elsa every time. She doesn't require explanations, doesn't ask any questions. Merely stays by Elsa's side until the fear has dissolved, even if it doesn't go away until the sun peeks over the far mountains and makes the room glow orange and pink.
"You're safe," Anna smiles, earnest and affectionate as always.
Anna tells her stories to take her mind off the reverberating afterimages that pulse behind Elsa's eyelids. Sometimes she wakes a servant to get them some cookies and milk, sometimes they sneak down to the kitchens together to make something themselves.
Sometimes there's a trail of dough and eggs and condiments from one room to the next when a spontaneous food fight breaks out between the girls at 4 in the morning (they try to be good about cleaning it up… most of it, anyway).
Another night, another nightmare.
"It's okay, Elsa. I'm here," says Anna.
She rubs Elsa's back. Doesn't need to know what Elsa saw, doesn't seem concerned that she's missing out on sleep to sit here with her sister, again – doesn't ever.
They take turns playing with each other's hair and giggling together like the little girls they once were.
Elsa wakes up sobbing, and this time she tells Anna what she dreamed about.
"I was in the mountains again," she says in a watery voice. "But this time when you came, the castle crumbled. It shattered and pierced you, and then everything tumbled down the mountain. I couldn't save you, and it was all my fault that you were killed in the first place." She swiped fiercely at her eyes and that familiar terror of losing control rips at her heart and soul.
"It's always my fault," Elsa chokes.
Anna tugs Elsa into her familiar embrace and shushes her softly like she always does. Patient, kind, unwavering.
"It's over," she whispers. "It's over, and everything is alright. We're safe – I'm safe. It's okay."
And maybe it's just through repetition and nothing more, but soon, the words begin to stick. The nightmares grow less frequent, less severe, though it's still months before they begin to disappear entirely.
"It's okay Elsa, you're home," repeats Anna – the same thing she'd said after the very first night Elsa had woken screaming. "It's alright. You're safe."
This, as it would turn out, becomes the last for almost a year.
"You're safe," Anna gently insists as always.
It takes a lot longer than Elsa would've liked, but someday she's finally able to believe her.
-end-
A/n: Title from "Safe & Sound" by Taylor Swift & The Civil Wars, from the Hunger Games soundtrack. Thanks for reading! Feedback is love. :)