Olaf's chattering is comforting, if only because Anna can busy herself keeping Kristoff from telling Olaf the truth about what happens to ice in summer. Of course, she realizes that Olaf will have to find out eventually, given the risk to his own life, but why take away such hope?

Anna frets about this for a good while before the obvious hits her.

Dammit Elsa, she thinks furiously and nearly tells Olaf herself that he'll melt faster than a wicked witch in water if he ever sees summer.

Anna, to her dismay, is not nearly so glib as she'd like to be in real life. When she steps or rather slides through the entrance of Elsa's incredible ice palace, her ears ring with happiness at the sound of her sister's soft voice, "Anna?" But when Anna raises her eyes to meet her sister's at the top of the staircase, she's struck dumb.

Elsa, hesitant as she emerges from the shadows of the door, nevertheless cuts an elegant and breathtaking figure, draped in a gown that seems as light and delicate as powdered snow. She shines as brightly and clearly as a star. Whatever outrage or hurt or comfort Anna could have mustered disappears in an instant. Words unbidden drift through her mind, an author she knows that Elsa likes. Anna never had the patience to study diligently for her tutors but she read from the family library every book that her sister touched.

Born yesterday of the cold mountains, of icy cliffs, of the brine of the sea, she walks here already half divine.

Sweet heavens above, Anna thinks, gazing stupidly up at her sister. Elsa, you're gorgeous. She blurts out, however, "Whoa.. Elsa, you look… different!"

Oh sweet heavens above, Anna laments.

"It's a good different!" she tries to clarify, relying again on chatty cheerfulness, "And this place… it's amazing!"

"Thank you," her sister replies softly.

Anna thinks Elsa says more but, besides their disastrous time at the coronation ball, this is about as many words as they usually exchange in a week, and Anna rushes by habit to say as much as she can before Elsa politely pushes her away. "I'm so sorry about what happened. If I had known–"

"No, it's okay," Elsa interrupts. Anna is too nervous to notice her sister's trembling voice. "You don't have to apologize–"

No, don't, Anna quails, feeling the familiar disappointment of her sister's turning face.

"–but you should probably go… please," Elsa finishes. Anna can't know that Elsa deliberately averts her gaze, so as to avoid Anna's eyes, the still and always bright and hopeful look she gives.

"But I just got here," Anna says softly.

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I suppose that, since we haven't had much practice, our confrontations would continue to be devastating.

I can barely shut the door before my knees completely give way. My breaths are too short. I can't seem to fill my lungs. I bring my forehead to the floor and just rest there, telling myself that I'm only taking a moment to let the dizziness pass, but I won't be moving anytime soon. I have been here before.

Turning my head, I stare at my hands, which lie limply by my face. I can hear my snow monster chasing them off. There's shouting. I expected that. Anna is impressively stubborn. I mean, she still knocked on my door every morning, for heaven's sake. My lips twist in a pained smile of admiration and grief. Most unseemly. The thought invites others, familiar demons I thought I could simply leave behind me. I am ashamed of my reckless stupidity. The breath remains shallow in my chest as the words filter through the haze of fear in my mind.

I can't control the curse.

I can't. I can't. I can't.

The helplessness is thick inside my throat, constricting my breath. Lying on the floor of my empty new home, I clutch my hands, staring at them, my beautiful gown fading into a gray white shift. Terror, familiar devil, sits like a slow poison in my veins. In a palace of only shut doors, the wind howls hysterically around me, spinning and spinning from the feelings I can't name because there are no words for these terrible things.

Fury seizes me and I slam my clenched hands onto the ground. Pain shoots up to my elbows and, crying openly now, I push myself up and lean against the doors of the palace.

From the other side, I think I hear someone throw a snowball. How much of my life has passed listening to her every move?

Wearily, I look down at my hands. The skin is cracked around a knuckle but I'm not bleeding. The cut only shows a pale dirty gray, no soft warm flesh. If my skin didn't feel so stiff, I think I could peel myself away and expose a statue of ashen marble underneath. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the curse began to show itself in my very body. My heart feels like its clutching itself inside my chest, brittle and so desperately afraid.

I squeeze my arms around my knees and stare straight ahead, looking for that place.

"C-conceal," I choke out, "Don't, don't feel." Conceal, don't feel.

Slowly, the wind ceases and the world becomes quiet, gray and still.

Conceal, don't feel. Again. Conceal, don't feal. Again.

Again.

I don't feel the cold like others do, but these words have always felt numb on my tongue. I repeat the words until they push everything out and there is nothing inside me. Outside, I hear my snow monster roaring. "Make them go, my darling," I whisper. "Only monsters allowed here."