The waiting took hours.
Anna took forever to come. Elsa, her mother liked to say, slipped out like ice.
Elsa was too young to remember most of it, details were clouded inside the fog of childhood. She'd fidgeted nervously in the hallway while her father paced restlessly back and forth, not understanding much of what was going on other than knowing something different was happening. She'd never seen her father so anxious and distressed.
She doesn't remember plugging her fingers in her ears as deep as they could go or running to another corridor to hide from her mother's screams.
But she does remember that first clear wail, a cry so new and piercing that Elsa felt something hot inside shift. It tore her towards the room and Elsa scrambled up to the bed where her mother lay weary and sweaty, an exhausted but knowing smile on her face. Though the Queen beckoned Elsa closer, she was hesitant to see the thing that had so undone her parents.
But at the first sight of her sister, the warm thing settled somewhere deep inside her. Elsa tore her eyes away and looked up at her parents in wonder.
It was Anna.
A tiny hand gripped her finger and Elsa flared, knowing in that touch that she belonged to her: that they belonged to each other. That she wasn't alone in the world anymore.
Forever was worth it.