Iridescent orbs shimmered as they floated through the air, dancing on the breeze. Tiny grasping hands tried to catch one, breaking the delicate surface. "Awww. It popped." Anna pouted and stamped a little foot.
"You said you were a big girl Anna." Elsa giggled from the bench, "Big girls don't stamp their feet and only big girls get a turn at blowing bubbles." She illustrated this by giving the bubble wand a good soaking in the soapy mixture she held in a jar and then blowing another stream of bubbles into the air.
"I am too a big girl!" Anna called back, eyeing up the bubbles that flew past her. "I'm five years old and that is big!" She reached out again and swiped at a particularly attractive sphere. It too popped. This time her pout was a little less defined. "They keep popping." She groused.
"They are too fragile to catch Anna. Or to even land on the ground." Elsa blew another stream of bubbles and delicately cupped one in the air. It popped despite her care. Anna had been watching. If even Elsa couldn't catch one then it must be impossible.
"I wish they would last just a little longer." Anna skipped over and sat on the bench beside Elsa. They had been playing in the garden a while now so some of her extra fidget had been used up. She looked at the jar of soapy water and then looked at her sister. "I got an idea."
"What is it Anna?" Elsa wondered if it would involve her little sister blowing bubbles. Last time they had bubble mixture to play with, Anna had accidentally spilled all of it on the floor. That was why they could only play bubbles in the garden now.
"Could you magic them?" Anna turned her gaze at Elsa, wide eyes and a cute smile that worked on everyone. From Papa right down to the mean cook who otherwise wouldn't let chocolate free from the pantry.
Elsa considered it. If she could make snow and ice and freeze things too, then maybe she could freeze the bubbles. "I'll try. But you might have to blow the bubbles so I can do the magic." Anna smiled with delight and reached out her hands, wriggling her fingers ready to grasp the jar and bubble wand. Elsa waited for her to stop fidgeting and carefully passed on the two.
"I'll blow some when you are ready." Anna jabbed the wand into the jar and stirred it with gusto and looked at Elsa.
"Okay. Try now." Elsa called her magic into her hands and watched for the bubbles. Anna let some extra mixture drizzle from the wand and let a breath through pursed lips. The stream of bubbles wasn't quite as grand as Elsa's but there were some. Choosing one that had flown high into the air Elsa reached out her hand to it.
And watched with dismay as the flow of magic hit as snowflakes and popped the bubble. Another good candidate twirled in the air and Elsa crinkled her eyes into a squint and held her palm near it.
A snowball plopped to the floor. Not giving up Elsa chose another and focused on it.
This one began to frost over. It sank in the air a little, the descent sped by the added weight, but a delicate pattern spread over the surface and by the time it hit the ground it twinkled and shattered instead of popping.
"You did it! Anna beamed and blew another bunch of bubbles. All of these became solid with ice, looking twice as enchanting as they fell to the ground. Elsa smiled proudly.
The new game lasted until it was time to go inside and wash up for dinner.
Anna's daily knock and sing-song request for a snowman had been a few hours before. It had snowed all night and the palace grounds were thick with fresh powder. Still, it was too dangerous to play with her. One little slip up could hurt her little sister irreparably. Elsa had painfully ignored the call and had spent her afternoon with quadratic equations and geometry, distracting and enjoyable but still alone.
Anna had been ten a few days ago. She had wished her a happy birthday from the safety of the other end of the table, politely nibbled some cake (she was too worried about hurting Anna and keeping the ice in to feel anything but a little sick) and then fled to the safety of her room before Anna grabbed her or insisted on time spent together.
Now it was sinking in, as she played with mathematics and numbers, she had not been with Anna for half of her sister's life. Nearly anyway. Anna had been five on that dreadful night and now Anna was ten.
Her inkwell developed a glacier and Elsa sighed. She dropped her pen to the page and decided to leave her desk lest she frost her papers. The window, her sole portal to the outside world, beckoned. It was still light enough for Anna to be playing in the snow. Sure enough a figure was running around, jumping to leave deep prints and gathering mounds of snow to crash through. Elsa touched the glass, a physical barrier to complement the intangible web of fear that separated the sisters.
Directly opposite Elsa's window, just like every other time it snowed, was a snowman. His twig arms arranged to wave up to the room and a carefully arranged coal smile. Elsa smiled weakly at the snowman; someday Anna would give up building them and on that day Elsa knew her heart would break still further. The windowpane under her hand frosted and she pulled it back swiftly. Returning to just looking.
Anna had disappeared from view, probably going in to get hot coco or some other treat. Elsa sighed and turned away, disappointed she had missed at least observing her little sister. The crunch of feet in snow pulled her back to the window.
Anna stood next to her snowman and was raising something to her face, another object clutched in her mitten clad hand. Then, just visible to Elsa, a stream of bubbles danced away into the air. Another followed, another and more still. Elsa felt a catch in her throat, a sob or a chuckle she couldn't tell, but a smile had fought its way onto her face. "Oh Anna, never stop being you." She muttered to the lonely room.
Her thoughts turned, unbidden, to the joyful afternoon spent freezing soap bubbles in her magic. Anna had been enchanted by the sparkling orbs even if she was just as unable to touch them as regular ones. Elsa gently let her fingertips alight on the window once more, hopelessly wishing she could entertain her sister again.
Anna's almost shriek like gasp of surprise and joy jolted Elsa's heart. "Mama! Mama! Look! The bubbles have frozen, look how pretty they are." Elsa hurled herself from the window, ashamed that she had been so foolish again. She hadn't meant to do it, her parents must know that. Maybe they would think it was cold enough out to freeze the soapy water?
Busying herself to distance her mind from the slip-up, Elsa ignored anything outside her room once again.
It was bed time. Anna hadn't arrived to share her day with Elsa, though she had heard that her sister had worn herself out playing in the snow and had been carried fast asleep to bed. The careful tap on her door was her mother's knock. Elsa drew the sheets and blankets around her legs, her arms, her traitorous hands. "Come in."
"Hello Elsa." Her mother smiled, but since the incident it had never reached her eyes, though this time maybe it did?
"Hello Mama." Elsa kept her hands buried in fabric where they could do no harm. "How was your day?"
"It was very nice. Anna played in the snow after her lessons and showed me her snowman and some wonderful unexpected decorations." Her mother sat on the edge of the bed, the opposite end to Elsa.
"I'm sorry, it was an accident and I never meant to do it." Elsa could feel tears welling up and her mother's expression changed from a smile to a stricken look.
"Elsa! I'm not scolding you! They were beautiful, the frozen bubbles. The old troll said there was beauty in your power and those alone are proof." Idunn didn't reach out, Elsa would only shy away, but she let her daughter see a smile. "Anna loved them so much, even if her other bubbles didn't perform the same trick."
"I did it once. Before." Elsa allowed, they both knew what before meant.
"Thank you though Elsa, this is so hard for both of you, but it is what your father thinks is best. I won't tell him about this." She tried to keep any pensive feelings from her tone, her husband promised that this was for the best, for both girls. "Anna was so happy, I think it helped her forget for a moment that you were separated. She even mentioned seeing frozen bubbles with you, though she had forgotten it was during the summer."
"I'm glad she liked them." Elsa said softly, letting a little of her guilt drop away. "Can you tell her how much I like her snowman?" Idunn stood from the bed.
"Of course I will sweetheart." She blew a kiss, Elsa wouldn't permit any skin-to skin contact, this was the best Idunn could do. "Have a good night and I love you very much."
"Good night Mama. I love you too." Elsa watched her mother leave the room and shut the door before snuggling into her sheets to sleep. She didn't need them for warmth, but being surrounded and wrapped up in fabric made her feel safe. She fell asleep without much of the anxieties and dreads that kept her wakeful being a bother. Anna had loved the ice-bubbles, they had made her sister happy, so just for a little tiny bit, Elsa could be happy too.
Sorry for the feels. Happies and sads are going to be in any story that exists in the times of seperation.
I had the idea for this story when I was TV shopping. Really. I want a new HD TV to replace my first-gen bus'n'all 19" screen so I was browsing in the shop. One of the brands advertised just how super-amazeballs-spiffy-awesome their HD was with an ad sequence that involved freezing soap bubbles and an idea hit.
Then I made it all bittersweet.