Three weeks have passed since the sisters fell asleep in the hallway. Anna didn't return to see her parents in the morning. Elsa had promised she would finally eat with her at breakfast. That morning, while the girls had a very awkward and strained meal their parent's body's were being prepared for burial. The girls tried to avoid the subject as much as possible.
Anna never saw much of Elsa after that morning. She attended the funeral two days later alone. She stood to the side to leave a space for Elsa to stand in between the graves, but she never showed. People asked her where Elsa was afterwards, and Anna didn't know how to answer so she just told them the truth. "I'm not sure."
Elsa was there.
She wore a dark shawl to cover her dress and a black, hooded cloak to cover her head. She painted her face to look like an old woman and made sure to not look anyone in the face. She stayed in the middle of the assembly of mourners and kept her sad gaze on Anna. Her heart beat loudly with anxiety of being recognized, and it took all her strength, all her might to keep the ice at bay behind her skin. The cold rain only making the ice inside her feel more comfortable to escape her pores and freeze her clothes.
"Don't feel. Don't feel." She muttered under her breath.
As soon as the people in front of her began to turn and leave Elsa left too. She never looked back, she was too afraid.
She sneaked back into the castle unseen and ran in a dead sprint for her room. When she closed her door, she did so gently so to not bring attention to it and ripped off her disguise. She examined the ice growing all around the walls and floor, but ultimately forced herself to float over to her vanity and wetted a rag to wipe away her painted wrinkles. She set the rag down and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked dull and cloudy, her skin had a gray look to it, there were bags under her eyelids. She hadn't been sleeping well at all lately with the pressures dropped on her shoulders.
*Knock knock knock* So simple, she thought it must have been a servant, and she rose to to cross over the floor and retrieve whomever was at her door.
"Elsa? Please I know you're in there." She froze, her gloved hand resting on the door knob.
"People have been asking where you've been."
'No one recognized me?' She thought and looked over at the dirty rag on her vanity table and Anna continued speaking and Elsa looked back at the door, her hand still on the knob.
"Just let me in." Anna pleaded and emotionally kicked the legs from under Elsa down her big sister sunk in grief and sat against her door, bringing her knees close. She felt another body slide down the door. "Do you wanna be a snowman?" Elsa closed her eyes and bowed her head whimpering.
"Y-yes." The word shouldered it's way out from the bottom of her diaphragm, coming out strangled, but it came out nonetheless.
Anna heard it, heard how fragile it sounded and her heart fall down into her stomach. The answer rang in her ears softly and she let it rest there. She didn't push Elsa. She didn't do anything but sit there in the reticence until Gerda came to call upon the girls for supper.