Chapter 2: The Curse We Share

On the outskirts of town there was a small hill with a bunny slope just small enough that Anna wouldn't face plant every time she went down it. Kristoff and Elsa trudged through the snow towards her, with Sven trailing along behind them, sniffing around for some grass to eat under the powdery snow. "Why'd you leave her out here alone?" Elsa asked stiffly, she had a feeling that Anna would be even more treacherous on the slopes when left to her own devices. "She said she wanted some practice" Kristoff said with a shrug. Elsa folded her arms in disagreement, "I think she could have broken her neck".

Kristoff gave her a sideways look, lowering his voice (though only Sven could hear them at the bottom of the hill), "Is something wrong? Because if I caught you at the wrong time, I'm sorry. I didn't really think coming to your room was a good idea, but I thought, hey, why not? We are family now". He was rambling and Elsa felt guilty. Kristoff hadn't meant to put Anna in danger, she was just overprotective because of…well she didn't like to think about the reasons.

Anna was waving at them erratically, looking more than ever like she was going to fall down the hill at any second. "It's okay" Elsa said, "Forget it". She put on a winning smile but Kristoff didn't look convinced, "Honestly I'm fine" she reassured him, and he slowly nodded,

"Well okay then" he said.

As they reached the top of the hill, Anna flung herself at Elsa. Elsa steadied herself by cementing both their feet in ice. Anna looked down at their feet, feeling sheepish, "Am I really that bad?" She asked, her green eyes wide like a child's or a puppy dog's eyes.

"Yes" Elsa replied, as she slowly melted the ice away with her love for her sister, "But practice makes perfect". Anna nodded enthusiastically,

"Right!" She punched the air with her fist, "Will you show me the trick you can do? You know skiing without skis?"

"It's just gliding down the mountain" Elsa said modestly,

"Do it, do it, do it!" Anna squealed and Kristoff shook his head with a fond smile at his young wife, "You're going to have to Elsa, how you can say no to a face like that?"

That was how the afternoon was spent outside, Elsa showing them her snow tricks and then Kristoff helping Anna ski down the mountain with tips of his own. By the time the sun began to set, Elsa was thoroughly exhausted and was grateful to Kristoff for letting Anna and her ride Sven back home as he walked alongside them. Elsa wished the trip would take longer, but soon found herself back at her lonely palace, waving goodbye to her sister and brother-in-law, a false grin plastered on her face.

They would never know how she dreaded the hours she spent alone.

But what if you're not alone? What if he comes back? A tiny voice said in her head- the voice of hope…or madness she mused.

Elsa laughed at the thought and a guard gave her an alarmed look as she stepped through the entrance to her home. She supposed she hardly ever laughed, so it came as a shock to him. "Your highness" he said with a bow. Elsa nodded to him,

"Good evening". It was embarrassing but she couldn't remember his name, and she didn't spend enough time with him to find a way to learn it. In fact, she only knew the names of the staff that attended directly to her, like her lady's maid Sophia and the butler Joseph.

But you remember his name, don't you? Elsa ignored the voice and slowly dragged her feet up the stairs to her bedroom, letting her light blue cape made of snowflakes woven together, trail behind her at a snail's pace. Yes, she thought, but Pitch seemed too surreal to be real. But he is real, he's just like you….The persistent and annoying voice of her conscience pestered her and she tried to block it out. "He's nothing like me" she hissed in denial, as she opened the door to her room, and glanced along the hallway to make sure nobody could hear her.

As she snapped the door behind her, a black figure loomed behind it in the shadows, "Has anyone ever told you that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness?" Elsa stifled a scream, holding her hand over her mouth to dull the high pitched sound that had escaped her lips for a brief second.

She immediately realised that she needn't have bothered to cover it up; nobody could hear her anyway. All the servants were downstairs, far away from her. It was just Pitch here, with his strangely luminous eyes that shone in the darkness.

"Pitch Black, the Nightmare King" she whispered, "You're like me…" His gold-silver eyes burned intensely like fire but he said nothing and Elsa blushed a deep crimson colour, "I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm saying, too much mountain air. You see Anna and Kristoff took me skiing and…"

Elsa rambled on and Pitch watched her in amusement, it was as if she couldn't keep her words contained, they just spilled out of her mouth like a dam in overflow. "This is very unlike you" Pitch said softly, swooping down to stand in the centre of the room. Elsa bit her lip, he was right, she was acting flustered like…like… "Anna" Pitch finished for her. Elsa stared at him, "You can read minds?" She didn't even bother feeling surprised about that possibility, so far today he had leaked out from under her bed, hung off her ceiling like a bat and appeared out of nowhere in her room, twice. "No, actually" Pitch admitted, circling her with liquid black smoke swirling in his wake, "But I think I know a little bit about you…." Elsa shivered at his words and turned away, running her pale slender fingers through her hair and hanging her cape on the hook on the door to recover from his assumption. Pitch noticed how her skin as pale as starlight, shone white like snow against the pale blue sparkles on her figure hugging dress, but said nothing of it.

She stopped for a moment with her back to him, "But you don't really know me, I just met you…" Pitch touched her shoulder and she flinched away from him, giving him a reproachful look. The gold-silver eyes told no secrets and bored into her as if they were soulless, then Pitch blinked and the intensity faded to be replaced by a lazy expression that Elsa suspected was well practised. "You agree we are the same though" Pitch said in his silky voice, and Elsa could not disagree. She had said it herself. Even though her people now accepted her as their Queen, was she really believed in? It didn't feel like it…

Elsa sat down on the bed and undid her loose braid, so that her white blond hair cascaded down her back in waves. Pitch looked out the window awkwardly and quite oddly, scowled at the moon. Elsa gave him a quizzical look, "What's wrong?" She realised what she should have been asking was: what are you doing in my room again and how do you do it? But she wanted company. His company. For he had been the first to truly reach out to her since summer ended.

"The Man in the Moon has cursed us" he revealed to her, not taking his eyes off the orb of light in the sky. Elsa tried to take him seriously, "You mean the moon has".

"No" Pitch turned around, his cloak of liquid smoke billowing in the cool night breeze, "The Man in the Moon exists, like you and I, and he made us like this". Elsa felt adrenaline flood her veins and felt foolish for believing him, but this could be the answer to why she was the way she was- the Snow Queen that some whispered of as a monster…

"He cursed us with powers" Elsa stated, coming to her own conclusion. Pitch shrugged,

"If you want to see it that way, I see the powers as gifts and our roles as the curse"

"What do you mean?" Elsa asked shrewdly, and Pitch stepped closer to her, leaning in as if to tell her a great secret, "He made us the ones who aren't believed in. The ones to be alone. We have power so great that others fear us. That is our curse, it's the curse we share".

"I don't want to be alone anymore!" Elsa cried out in anger, anger at whoever this Man in the Moon was. This creator that Pitch spoke of, he had made her childhood a tragedy. "Are there others?" Elsa asked, "Others like us?" Pitch studied her carefully, weighing up what he was deciding to divulge, "Yes and no" he finally said. Elsa eyed him suspiciously, she still wasn't sure if she could trust him after his outburst earlier. "What do you mean?" She asked slowly.

Pitch made a circular motion with one hand and a black mirror appeared, apparently made of the same smoky substance that everything he created was born of: darkness. "Look in the mirror" Pitch said slowly, and Elsa stepped closer to him upon his command. She could feel his dark presence pressing upon her as she stepped within his aura, and had to keep herself from looking down at the black smoke snaking around her feet, lest she look afraid. Pitch held the mirror out to her, a smile curling his lips as she took it in her hands. On touching the black substance, she felt a flood of horrible memories rush through her head. She glared at him and handed the mirror back roughly.

"If you are just here to torture me, you can leave now" she said icily, the memory of Anna frozen solid on the fjord still vivid in her mind. Pitch waved the mirror away in a wisp of smoke, "I wanted you to look into the mirror, I forgot that if you touched it…"

"I think you should just…leave" Elsa said with finality, her lips pursed and hands shaking with the storm of emotion that the dark memories had stirred within her. Pitch turned away from her, bewildered by her reaction, "The memories weren't my fault, it's the nightmares, they infect everything I create". Elsa look at him accusingly,

"They're still your nightmares" she argued, hardly knowing what he meant by 'nightmares', but knowing it was his fault that she was reliving all the painful memories she had tried so hard to repress…

Pitch stepped away from her and into the shadows cast by the long curtains framing the moonlight. "I'll take my leave then your highness" he said, with a sweeping bow, and then he disappeared into the shadows, but not before Elsa glimpsed his gold-silver eyes glowing ominously with suppressed rage.

Elsa coolly watched his fiery eyes dissolve in the darkness. Then she flopped down on the bed and remembered Pitch's words tonight… He made us the ones who aren't believed in. The ones to be alone. We have power so great that others fear us. That is our curse, it's the curse we share. Suddenly Elsa wished she'd never sent Pitch away and glared at the moon that illuminated her solitude once more.