Chapter 1: Ripped Away
"Come on, Anna, just a little more!" Elsa encouraged.
Anna let out one more wail before flopping back into the pillows. "I can't!" she cried. She sounded close to tears. "I'm so tired, and I just can't," her voice dropped to a whimper.
Kristoff pressed a kiss into his wife's temple. "Yes, you can, Feisty Pants," he coached. "And here, take my hand before you break Elsa's fingers."
Anna glared up at him fiercely. "If I ever get out of this, I'm going to break more than your fingers," she swore. "I'm gonna break that body part that put a baby ox in me in the first place!"
Kristoff winced, and was relieved when Elsa saved him with a laugh. "I highly doubt your baby will look or be shaped anything like an ox, my clever little sister. She'll be pretty, like her parents."
Kristoff frowned. "I am not pretty."
"Oh, yes, you are," Anna assured, as Elsa giggled. However, in the next moment, Anna was pushing again, straining against a contraction. And her words were not nearly as loving. "Holy fuck, Kristoff, you are going to pay for this!"
"The baby is crowning, Your Highness!" the midwife encouraged, where she was perched at the bottom of Anna's spread legs. Anna leaned back, weeping from agony and sheer exhaustion.
"Kristoff... I love you!" she wept. Man, her emotions were see-sawing from one place to the next. Kristoff only hoped that they stabilized once the little baby was out in the world. Then, with a final, wrenching scream, Anna shoved the baby out of herself, and collapsed back into the bedclothes with a crash. She lay still as the midwife wrapped the bloody, squalling thing in a blanket and whisked her away to be cleaned. Kristoff broke into a beaming smile.
"Anna, you did it!"
Elsa, who had followed the midwife out into the hall to observe the cleaning, came flitting back in. "It's a girl!"
"Did you hear that, Anna? A little girl, just like we wanted!" Kristoff brushed back Anna's sweaty hair. Still, the Princess did not respond. Kristoff shook her. "Anna... wake up! It's over! Anna?" he frowned in deep concern.
Just then, the midwife and a team of nurses came swarming back into the room. Thrusting the baby bundle into Kristoff's arms, the midwife rather brusquely dismissed them. "You need to leave now." And she forced the Queen and the Arendelle Ice Master out into the hall. The siblings-in-law looked at each other, Elsa's face etched with worry.
"What do you suppose is wrong?"
"I don't know. But it can't be very good, can it?" Kristoff shrugged.
Minutes passed like hours. Hours passed like days. Kristoff was starting to regret leaving Olaf and Sven to wait in the stablehouse; he could have used one of the live snowman's famous hugs right about then. His sister-in-law's demeanor wasn't helping matters - the hem of Elsa's ice dress swished fretfully around her ankles as she paced. Icy particles emanating from her restless feet quickly turned a stretch of hallway carpet into a river of slushy snow. Frost crept onto the walls, quickly followed by jagged icicles. Elsa must not have been particularly concerned with concealing right then, for she was obviously feeling a whole hell of a lot. Meanwhile, the shadows grew longer on the walls as the sun made its trek and eventual descent across the skies.
A click of a lock as the doorknob turned shook both Elsa and Kristoff from their thoughts. The midwife emerged, looking a little pale. Or maybe it was a trick of the rapidly rising moonlight.
"Your Majesty? Sir Kristoff?"
They both stared at her, faces primed with tension.
"The... the Princess... has passed away, ma'am," the midwife directed her report to the Queen. "I'm so very sorry."
Elsa's face contorted, twisted itself the way that ice might with someone's reflection. "ANNA!" The scream was blood-curdling, heartbreaking, as Elsa barreled her way past the poor midwife and burst into the Princess's private chambers. Though it was rude, Kristoff took his cues from his sister-in-law in his haste to follow. He emerged into his and Anna's room to find Elsa flinging herself prostrate over the bed, which still cradled her sister's motionless form. A pool of blood was Anna's blanket.
Elsa's entire body convulsed in wracking sobs - sobs that she wept bitterly as she clung to Anna's lifeless body all the tighter. Guards entered the bed chambers as discreetly as they could - perhaps summoned by Kai or another servant - and attempted to lead the Queen away without making too much of a scene. But Elsa would have none of it, she was past all reason, and though she batted away all touch with just her arms, Kristoff knew it wouldn't be long before icy blasts started flying, if she was pushed too hard in a direction she didn't want to go. "NO! NO! You can't tell us that! You can't - you can't!" Elsa seemed to be directing the broken wails to the poor midwife, as much as her cries of denial served as a refusal to be separated from her beloved sister.
It did the guards no good - nothing could keep Elsa from nestling Anna's body in her arms. "Guards," Kristoff commanded quietly through his own tears. "Leave us in our grief." The guards reluctantly obeyed, casting looks of sympathy and pity at their Queen as they went. The midwife stayed behind, by now back to holding the baby in her arms. Kristoff paid them no heed as he crossed to the bed and rested a hand on Elsa's shoulder, staring down at his wife forlornly. His Anna... so vibrant and full of life. Now all that energy just... sucked away. Gone. The accursed word tolled like a bell in his head. Gone.
Kristoff broke down. "Oh, my Anna... my beautiful, beautiful wife!"
"Oh, Kristoff! My poor, poor Kristoff!" Elsa wept, throwing her arms around him.
They held each other like that until the rising of the sun - the first day without Anna - blinded their sleepless eyes. By now, the midwife had been sent to bed, the baby cocooned between the warmth of her father and aunt. A quiet creak at the door alerted the broken family to a new presence - the Captain of the Guard, looking worn and apologetic.
"Your Majesties... we must have your orders regarding what is to be done with the Princess." He winced at the numb look displayed by Kristoff, the horrified look sent by Elsa.
Kristoff cleared his raw throat, willing it to work. "Dress her for burial. Give her the ancient rites."
"She is to be... laid beside our parents," Elsa elaborated. "Thank you, Captain. We will take care of the rest."
The Captain dipped his head in deference, then from the room he fled. Kristoff passed the baby to his wife's sister.
"Here. Look after her, sister. I think my daughter will be better off in the arms of a Queen."
Elsa gazed at his retreating back. "Kristoff... what are we going to name...?"
"Rest! I need rest." And Kristoff stalked from the room.