Chapter Three
When Elsa came to it was to the sound of running water. She gingerly opened her eyes and her vision filled with red curls. She blinked a few times until she could focus and realized she was lying on the ground and Merida was leaning over her, looking down with concern.
"Are you alright?" After Elsa collapsed Merida was in a near panic state- this was definitely not how she envisioned this day going! All she wanted was to show Elsa some of her favorite places and hopefully make her comfortable enough to smile and laugh, and well, perhaps steal a kiss from those beautiful lips- but definitely not causing her to faint and possibly ruin all her chances with the queen and any business relations between their countries! Together with Angus she grabbed the fallen queen and they rode to the Fire Falls, where she had laid Elsa down and splashed some cold water on her face. Luckily Elsa was waking up, and Merida felt her whole body trembling with relief. If word of this got back to her mother she'd be in so much trouble!
"What happened?" Elsa accepted Merida's help and sat up, rubbing her head and looking around her. Gone were the horrible stones and she found she was sitting at the bank of a swift stream, the end result of massive, formidable falls. The sun was shining brightly again and the air was full of sparkling waterfall drops and the sweet scent of grassy meadows. Elsa could feel her body relaxing and her head clearing at the sight of the falls and the stone cliffs- mountains were her home after all.
"Well, I'm not sure." Merida confessed lowly, sitting besides Elsa and pulling her knees to her chest, "I took you over to see the stones, but you suddenly collapsed, your skin was completely white and there was frost all around you." Elsa's breath hitched and she looked down at her hands, she cast a sidelong glance at Merida to make sure her gaze was firmly on the water before she pulled away one of her trusty gloves and sparked a tiny snowflake, just to make sure she could. She nearly melted with relief when she realized her powers were still working. "Your sister said you were special, but I never thought the stones will affect you so much, I'm really sorry." She turned to Elsa with pleading eyes. Elsa smiled softly, placing her hand on Merida's shoulder lightly, the poor princess looked so miserable in her guilt that Elsa couldn't possibly stay mad at her.
"It's alright. There was no way you could have known." Licking her lips nervously she locked eyes with Merida before she sparked a shower of snowflakes, rising to the air in a beautiful swirling formation, and then falling softly to rest on Merida's fiery curls before melting. Merida's jaw dropped in shock and her eyes glinted.
"That's amazing!" She cried joyfully, and Elsa shrugged softly, though she couldn't quite hide her smile, she was in a very bad way if a simple praise from Merida was causing her to warm up from the inside like that. Suddenly Merida's face fell, and her eyes opened up big and frightened, "If I knew you had powers, I never would have taken you to the stones! They steal away magic!" Elsa pulled her knees to her chest as well and looked apologetically at Merida,
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I guess I was nervous about what you'd think." She confessed, not daring to look Merida directly in the eyes, the Scottish Princess however, rose to her knees, her eyes sparkling with awe,
"Are you joking? This is the best thing I've ever seen!" She gushed, grabbing Elsa's hands without even thinking about it. Elsa froze, and then Merida froze, realizing she was practically kneeling between Elsa's knees and holding her hands. Swallowing hard, it took Merida all but a second to make up her mind and she leaned forward to press her lips to Elsa's.
Elsa's natural response was to freeze, and push Merida away, but something kept her from doing that. It could have been the fact that Merida was still holding her hands and not complaining about how cold they were, or the fact that she's been thinking of doing exactly that from the second she laid eyes on the Scottish Princess. Either way, she soon found herself responding to the kiss. Merida's hand slowly left Elsa's hand and traveled up to her shoulder, then neck as she sought to deepen the kiss. This felt good, so very good. And so, so overdue!
When they broke apart for air both girls were flushed and breathing heavily. They gazed at each other's eyes and smiled, suddenly shy. Merida pulled back, sitting on her haunches and bit her lip uncertainly. She wanted to dive right back in and kiss Elsa again but she wasn't sure how the gesture will be received. This was already better than everything she dared dreaming before- Elsa's lips were soft and chilled while her tongue was hot and the dual sensation was making Merida see stars. Elsa lifted her hand slowly, and buried it in Merida's thick hair, feeling the silky curls tangling in her fingers before she tugged slightly and brought Merida back in for another kiss. The movement was so unexpected it caused Merida to lose her balance and resulted in her falling forward.
Merida looked down at the girl prostrate under her. Elsa's hand was still tangled in her hair and she didn't show any sign of wanting to change positions, so Merida lowered her head and kissed her again, her hand scrambling for the band that was holding Elsa's hair together. Elsa could feel her braid unraveling but for the first time ever, she didn't care what she looked like or the fact that her dress and hair were probably stained full of mud from the riverbank. For the first time in forever she wasn't thinking, planning or worrying- just feeling.
Pushing her leg between Merida's legs she quickly upturned their positions, Merida's hair flying around them and her shriek of surprise filling the air. Elsa laughed gaily as she pinned the other girl under her, raining kisses on her flushed face. Merida's hands went around Elsa's waist, pulling the girl even closer to her and wishing neither of them were wearing so many layers, but this was definitely not the place to start anything- if one of the farmers should happen about and saw the two of them in this position there was no end to the embarrassment, and her mother's scorn. And yet she couldn't, nor wanted to stop.
"I've wanted to do this for so long," Elsa murmured into Merida's neck, and the Scottish girl grinned widely in happiness, before turning her face to rub her nose against Elsa's.
"Me too." She confessed and the two smiled at each other, hands caressing each other's skin softly. Merida just wanted this moment to last forever, but of course it couldn't and the magic was broken when a loud eagle's shriek was heard above them and Elsa suddenly pulled herself up to her knees, looking around her as if she just remembered they were out in the open, but the only other creature around was Angus who didn't seem all that interested in what they were doing and opted to trample a bush into submission not far from where the girls were. The spell was broken and she could feel every muscle in her body pull tight at the thought of being seeing in such a state. She should never have let Merida talk her into this! This was wrong, wrong!
She looked down at Merida who was still lying spread eagle on the ground, her hair in an even bigger mess than usual and a wide smile spread on her flushed face. Elsa smiled softly and sat back, pulling away from the other girl. She ran her hands through her hair, feeling how messy it was as Merida pulled herself into a sitting position, her smile slowly slipping away.
"We should probably head back; people will start looking for us soon, won't they?" Elsa asked, suddenly very conscious of where she was, how dirty her clothes were and what exactly brought her to this state. This was complete folly; letting herself go like that, what purpose will this serve anyway? She was leaving to go back to Arendelle tomorrow; she was never going to see Merida again so getting herself into this situation was just setting them both for heartbreak. She was going back to Arendelle and Merida was going to stay here, and some day, she was going to have to chose a suitor and marry and then she'd forget all about Elsa and where would that leave her? 'Conceal, don't feel' that was her motto and right now it rang truer than ever. Merida tried to hide her disappointment of the other's girl sudden change of heart. If it was up to her she'd stay here all day long, kissing the beautiful queen, and maybe getting her to show some more of her amazing ice magic, but it seemed like Queen Elsa The Ever Proper and Formal was back and taking over and Merida knew when to cut her loses, even if she didn't understand what exactly went wrong.
"Sure, we can head back." She said, and tried to smile. Pulling herself to her feet she walked over to where Angus was standing triumphantly over the remnants of the poor bush and pretended to busy herself with checking that her bow was still strapped securely to the horse. Elsa stood alone at the riverbank, her arms wrapped around herself. She needed to stay strong, for both their sakes. She looked over at Merida who was pulling at the straps of Angus' saddle angrily, and then the horse swishing his long tail to hit her on the back of the head in retaliation for her actions. Merida glared at her horse with a pinched expression that made Elsa want to laugh. Instead she walked slowly over and placed a soft hand on Merida's shoulder. The redheaded girl froze in place, before shrugging Elsa's hand off of her,
"Here, I'll help you up." She said coldly and cupped her hands together for Elsa to step into and onto the horse's back, her eyes cast on the ground the whole time. Elsa didn't make a move to put her foot into Merida's hands and eventually Merida had no choice but to look up,
"I'm leaving tomorrow." Elsa said, her voice sad and full of regret. Merida looked away again. It didn't matter to her one bit that Elsa was leaving, and besides, it wasn't her fault they had so precious little time together! She could feel in her bones that this wasn't the real reason for Elsa's change of heart, but right now she didn't want to know the real reason because she just knew it would hurt too much.
"I know." Elsa opened her mouth to say something else but realized there was nothing else to say. She sighed and put her foot into Merida's hands, hoisting herself onto Angus' back. Merida followed and the horse turned to walk back to the castle, the two girls on his back sitting stiffly, each absorbed in her own thoughts, their bodies poised as far as possible away from each other, though on occasion the horse's movement brought them into touch and both could feel electric sparks shooting though them every time that happened. When they walked into the castle courtyard they were immediately pounced on by Anna, who was keeping watch at the gate.
"Where have you been?" She chided both her sister and Merida, "And what on earth happened to you?" She cried when both girls slipped from the horse's back and she could take full stock of their state. She could feel something was amiss by the fact the two of them were standing apart, each holding herself stiffly and refusing to look at the other. Both girls' dresses were a mess of mud stains, but what shocked Anna the most was the fact that Elsa's hair was hanging loose, and the pale locks smudged brown and green. She couldn't remember seeing her sister's hair outside a strict bun or a tidy braid, ever. She had to admit this was a good look for Elsa, but she could tell this wasn't the time for this sort of compliments.
"Angus slipped near the falls and threw us off." Merida said stiffly, as she led the deeply offended horse back to his loose box, leaving Elsa and Anna alone. Anna looked between her sister and her friend, completely lost. Her curiosity was burning but she knew Elsa would rather freeze her heart again than tell her what happened. Eventually she pulled herself together, noting that Elsa was still standing still, arms around herself and looking at the ground, completely lost. Suddenly Anna realized her gloves were missing and she knew Elsa was so close to the cracking point she'd better hurry lest her sister lose control of her powers again and everything they've been working so hard for this past week would be lost. Freezing your own land was bad enough, but freezing someone else's was probably just cause to open war. Or at the least get them kicked out of the Highlands shamefully and that was just as bad.
"Come on," She said with as much brightness as she could muster, grabbing Elsa's arm and started dragging her sister towards the castle, "Let's go find you some hot water so you can get cleaned up." Elsa went with her sister without protesting, but she turned her head right before entering the castle to see Merida standing by her horse, looking back at her sadly. Quickly averting her eyes Elsa closed the heavy door behind her.