That night, instead of going to bed as usual, Elsa and Anna stood watch several meters down the hallway from the prince's and princess's bedrooms, peeking around a corner. Shortly before midnight, Margaret's door swung open, and the princess calmly walked out in her nightgown, only pausing briefly upon turning to face them. She then walked directly towards them.
As she approached, Elsa saw that her eyes were closed… her niece was sleepwalking! She walked right in front of Elsa, then Anna, and continued down the hall. By mutual agreement, the girl's concerned aunt and mother both quietly followed her as she went.
The princess walked all the way down to the kitchens where she filled a glass with water and then returned to her room with Elsa and Anna following behind her the entire way.
The same thing happened the next night, but then the following night nothing. Elsa and Anna argued vociferously over Elsa's insistence on watching for a fourth straight night, and finally the younger prevailed upon the elder to stop being so paranoid. Only later would Elsa and Anna find out that their clever niece had been wide awake every time she'd gone out "sleepwalking."
Three times during that week, Elsa awoke in terror and Anna held and soothed her back to sleep, just as they had done for years after Elsa's coronation. Elsa did her best to convince herself that it was all in her head, and the royal heirs did their best to maintain that illusion, but somehow, the queen's subconscious knew exactly what she had seen and refused to dismiss the idea so easily.
Things gradually settled back to normal, and the following week Elsa slept through the night for three nights in a row. But then the delicate balance was upended by the most routine of events.
Kristoff and Sven returned from their latest harvesting trip, and once again Elsa had to sleep alone.
So that night, when Elsa bolted awake yet again, there was no Anna by her side to chase away the visions of her beloved prince and princess hanging lifelessly from crosses in the town square. Unable to close her eyes again with those frightful sights seemingly imprinted behind her eyelids, Elsa decided there was only one thing to do: she would take a walk, and reassure herself that everyone else was safe in their beds.
And that was how, at one o'clock in the morning, Elsa quietly opened her nephew's bedroom door and panicked to find the bed empty.
Heart pounding in trepidation, unsure what she should be more afraid of, Elsa crossed the hallway and quietly slipped open her niece's locked bedroom door using her ice magic, and felt the door almost immediately jam on something that felt like cloth stuck under the edge…
Suddenly her niece's words from ten nights ago came rushing back with blinding clarity…
"We'll figure out something to soundproof the door better…"
Suddenly certain that she hadn't been dreaming her heart-wrenching discovery ten nights ago after all, and desperate to prevent her nightmares coming true, Elsa forced the door open a few more feet and entered the room. Olaf and Margaret lay entwined facing each other on the bed, obviously naked though their lower halves were under the covers, both of them sweaty and profoundly satisfied.
The draft of freezing-cold air that accompanied Elsa into the room woke both teenagers from their blissful slumber. They each instinctively reached down with one hand and together pulled the covers over themselves as they opened their eyes. And then they noticed their queen watching them unhappily from the doorway. Margaret looked mortified, while Olaf looked resigned.
"Get dressed and then we'll talk," said Elsa, her tone clearly making it an order. The two teenagers hurriedly put on their nightclothes. Elsa turned her back to them until the rustling of cloth had stopped.
Olaf and Margaret sat up, leaning back against the headboard, his right hand holding her left hand under the covers, awaiting their judgment together.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?"
There was really nothing they could say, but the yellow-haired boy prince didn't miss a beat as he snapped back with all the righteous incredulity in the world.
"What are you doing here?"
In different circumstances, Elsa would have been pleased with Olaf's poise and bluster. She had trained her heir well, at least in this aspect… She could almost hear his unspoken retorts in her mind as he gazed up at her indignantly. We locked the door. We soundproofed it. How were we supposed to know you were going to barge in? To be fair, though, his surprise was genuine; there was no way he could have expected to be caught this time.
"I know what I saw the other night."
Prince and princess stubbornly kept their royal poker faces, giving away nothing. Elsa pushed down the small feeling of pride at how well they'd learned the control she taught them, filing it away for later. There was a much more important issue to deal with at the moment.
"What am I doing here, you ask? I couldn't sleep." Elsa took a deep breath and steeled herself to face her nightmare one more time. The twins could tell where this was going and Elsa knew she was hitting a chord. "Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you… both of you, crucified, in the town square, because of… this."
She didn't have to specify. Olaf and Margaret were obviously crestfallen and though it brought Elsa much pain as well, she knew this was the only way they would do what needed to be done.
"I had to come and see you, to make sure you were okay, to tell myself this was just a dream… and," Elsa sighed heavily, "you know the rest."
Olaf and Margaret bore the ashamed expressions of eight-year-old children who had just been caught stealing cookies from the kitchen.
"Margaret… Were you really sleepwalking that night?"
The strawberry blonde princess shook her head in defeat, admitting her ruse.
"Thank you," said Elsa, "now… let's try this again… What do you have to say for yourselves?"
There was a pause, then Olaf spoke up. "We're sorry. We wanted to protect you from this, and we failed."
Elsa nodded knowingly, inviting him to continue.
"You're still the only one who knows," he added after a moment, "and we promise to keep it…that…way?" The young prince trailed off questioningly as it was obvious that his dear aunt wasn't buying it…
Elsa wanted to groan in frustration. The twins knew what she wanted to hear, she was quite sure…
"And?" she prompted them again.
"Um… it's… true… love…?"
Wrong answer.
"This isn't funny, Olaf."
"But we really do love each other. I mean – what are we supposed to…"
Elsa's parental frustration began to change back to nervousness as she realized her nephew was actually serious about his feelings.
"This has to stop," she said in the firmest tone she could muster. To her consternation, the two teenagers showed no sign of accepting this fact. "You have to marry and have children, and not with each other…" Elsa was straining to keep the quiver out of her voice while still holding back the ice patch under her feet. "…this is wrong," Elsa hesitated, almost afraid to say what she had to say next. "…you do know that, don't you?"
The answer to that was a foregone conclusion after 16 years of a proper royal upbringing – but one would never have guessed it watching Olaf ask, in the most innocent and confused tone imaginable, "But how can true love ever be wrong?"
The boy prince was amazingly unruffled as his beloved aunt virtually broke down in front of him. Too agitated to appreciate how cute her nephew was being at that moment, Elsa spoke in anger, rooted in fear. "This isn't true love, can't you see? This is not how brothers and sisters love each other!"
Olaf clearly wanted to say something lighthearted again, but Margaret nudged him with an elbow. "Olaf, be serious," she admonished. The mischievous prince seemed to instantly snap out of his childish look, taking on a more mature air matching his age.
"Sorry," he apologized to his sister and then turned back to the queen. "Aunt Elsa, I know we're supposed to find a good prince or princess to marry. We already got to meet some at that ball a few months ago. It's just…"
The young prince thought for a moment, finding the appropriate words. "I met those princesses, I talked to them, I danced with them… they were nice, they just didn't, you know, make any impression on me. After I saw Margaret in that flowing velvet thing they made for her… I actually almost didn't recognize her from behind, I went up to her thinking she was another of the princesses I hadn't met yet. I can't really explain it, I'd always thought of her as a sister and a best friend but I literally never realized Margaret was a princess too, not until that day. And since then she's been just another princess in the parade of suitors, and I haven't been able to see her as anything else – "
Elsa seemed to become more worried the more Olaf said, and the always-observant prince could not have missed the drop in temperature or the growing sheet of ice climbing the wall behind her. Yet, in the back of his mind a nagging suspicion that he had carried for years was suddenly growing, though even he could only vaguely explain why Elsa's reaction to his heartfelt confession made him think so.
"No, please, you can't do this," Elsa seemed to beg no one in particular, as if pleading for some kind of divine intercession. The two teenagers looked on as she seemed to stand frozen in some terrible internal conflict.
At last Elsa faced her nephew and niece, with the resolve and self-loathing both evident in her expression, and laid down the law.
"I know we wanted you to grow up close, to be spared the torture which your mother and I went through… but this has gone too far. We have to separate you now at least for a—"
"It won't work," Margaret suddenly spoke up, "and the more you try the worse it's going to get." Elsa's gaze flickered to her niece in surprise. The princess was almost never this assertive with her, she was usually very good at being a good girl and always so quick to please…
"Please don't," Olaf pleaded. Even the usually cheerful and quick-thinking prince seemed to have run out of witty responses and seemed, for once, rattled.
Evidently, the threat of impending separation was the one thing that could instantly break down the royal teenagers' usually impenetrable poise and self-control.
"It's for your own safety," Elsa insisted. "…your mortal souls!"
"You can't make us do this!" A frantic Prince Olaf was a very rare sight to behold and was usually a very bad sign…
"Yes, I can," Elsa said threateningly, "I'm still the queen and if you need a reminder –"
"But it's true love!" protested Margaret, her voice and inflection so much like Anna's own from two decades prior that it sent a dagger through Elsa's heart. Her knees went wobbly and only by sheer force of will and habit the queen managed to stay standing.
Oh, Anna… what do you know about true love? The memory still haunted Elsa even twenty years later, but Elsa reminded herself this was a different situation. The teenager in front of her now was not her Anna; it was her sister's daughter, whom she loved as her own. Young Margaret had inherited many of the things that Elsa loved about Anna, including her signature pout and her stubborn streak, the latter of which was on full display. The girl was a perfect princess when she was determined to be one, which was most of the time, but on the rare occasion when her royal front collapsed and her passion shined through she would become a spitting image of her mother.
"But it's—" Elsa started, and then stopped, realizing she couldn't say it. It was wrong, it was a sin, just like the love she shared with her own sister. Anna's children were hers too, and she was failing them; how could she steer them right when she herself had gone horribly wrong?
Suddenly, Elsa realized, or remembered that that being separated had done no good to herself or Anna – indeed it was probably exactly what had set them on the twisted path of dark secrets they had precariously treaded for the last two decades. What am I doing!? She mentally kicked herself. I'm just making it worse! Her niece was right, separating them now would only hurt them, or even worsen their inappropriate feelings. Still unwilling to see what was in front of her face, Elsa grasped desperately at the one straw that might allow things to return to the way they were; to bring their family back to that happy time before any of the last two weeks' events.
"We won't keep you apart," she conceded, "in fact, we're just going to pretend this night never happened. But you can't do this anymore, and you're going to control your feelings like I know you're both capable of. I know nights have been especially hard for you, but I can help you with that…"
Both teenagers blanched at that, remembering all too well how Elsa had trapped them in their rooms, alone, after the first time they'd been caught…
"Aww, come on!" Olaf whined. "You think we don't know what you and Mom do at night when Dad's out harvesting?"
The daring young prince regretted his words the moment he saw his aunt's reaction, even though it proved his long-buried suspicions correct. Elsa's mouth fell open in shock and absolute terror – the twins looked at each other in trepidation, for they had never in their lives seen their calm and composed Aunt Elsa look so frightened – though the shiver that ran through them was probably also from the cold; the already-cold temperature of the room had instantly dropped to bone-chilling and a thin layer of frost seemed to snap into existence on every surface in the room. The very next moment Elsa fled from the room as if running for her very life, slamming the now ice-encrusted door behind her.
The remaining snowflakes still in the air fell onto whatever was below, coating the floor, desk, nightstand, and the bed, with those landing on Olaf and Margaret quickly melting from their body heat, the source of the snowflakes having departed precipitously.
"Oops…" Olaf said guiltily, and the room was silent.
Elsa had just barely made it out into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind her before the massive eruption of ice began to explode out of her chest. Unable to control or even shape the outburst, Elsa could only watch helplessly as the jets of ice shot forward out of her chest in an expanding arc, which quickly grew until the ice was blasting out through the sides of her ribcage as well, and then around to her back. When it was finally over, the entire hallway was coated from floor to ceiling with solid ice, and long patches of thick clear ice spikes tinged with red magical glow protruded from both walls all the way down the hallway, centered along the line where the magic had actually struck the walls.
Several meters down the hallway in one of the rooms, at that very moment, Anna startled awake from a deep slumber with an inexplicable need to make sure her sister was okay. She quietly drew back the covers, doing her best not to disturb Kristoff as he gently snored beside her.
To Elsa's great relief, there was no one in the hallway at this ungodly hour. It was only the third time in her life that she had lost her control so completely. Fortunately, she had recognized the signs, felt the sensation of her heart bursting and the tsunami forcing its way through her ribcage – the memory of accidentally freezing her sister's heart still painfully clear 20 years later – and so she'd known what was happening and managed to get clear in the nick of time.
Breathing heavily, Elsa sagged against the thickly iced wall just behind her and tried to regain her wits to deal with the revelation that had set off her panic attack in the first place. Somehow, despite her vigilance, her nephew had discovered her secret. There were now suddenly two deadly skeletons in the royal family's closet…
Only a moment later, another door was wrenched open several meters down the hall. "Elsa!"
Anna immediately stepped out onto the ice-covered hallway floor, heedless of the cold against her bare feet or the freezing air that penetrated her nightgown, looking for Elsa. In the dim red glow of the ice from Elsa's own heart, the torches along the walls having been extinguished and iced over, Elsa's usual platinum-white hair stood out and her ice dress sparkled in the darkness. "Elsa!"
Elsa froze in renewed panic at the sound of Anna's shout and almost fled again, unsure if there was any more magic waiting to burst out of her, but managed to remind herself that Anna was exactly what she needed for that, and stopped herself from moving. Anna skidded and slipped over the icy floor towards her like a madwoman, oblivious to anything except the need to reach Elsa as quickly as possible and give her a badly needed hug. Elsa desperately clung to her sister's warmth, crying in both relief and worry.
"Shhh. It's okay, Elsa…" Anna whispered into her ear.
Just then, the ice coating the door next to them crackled and popped, and then broke off, bits falling onto the ground as the door was forcibly pulled open. "We're sorry!" Olaf's frantic voice preceded him out of the room, then he emerged out a moment later, followed by Margaret. "Aunt Elsa, we're so sorry! We would never use that against you, no matter what you did to us…"
With Elsa's recent nightmares still fresh in her mind, Anna looked at her children and began to put two and two together. "Oh my God, Elsa, did you just…" Elsa nodded miserably. "…So they're really… together?" Another nod.
"They know, Anna." Didn't matter how quietly Elsa whimpered; Anna heard, and her eyes went wide, she knew exactly what Elsa meant. Their own secret had finally been discovered. "How did they…"
"We've polluted them," Elsa wailed, crying into Anna's shoulder in shame.
"We honestly didn't know!" Olaf explained earnestly. "I've been wondering ever since I realized how I felt about Margaret, but we never actually saw any evidence. We didn't know you were doing it, I swear! I watched you for months and never saw anything that could give you away, you hid it so well. I just blurted it out just now because we were both desperate and thought we were going to lose each other – it was our last slim hope – I was totally guessing, total shot in the dark until I saw how you reacted, and… we're sorry…"
"The whole past two weeks is our fault," Margaret sniffled, "and we know you love us and we love you, and we never wanted any of this to happen and we're sorry…"
Keeping hold of Elsa in her arms, Anna turned her head and looked at her children with an exasperated but still loving expression. "You little stinkers… if you would've been so honest two weeks ago! We could've been doing this somewhere nice and comfortable…"
The two teenagers gave her a very skeptical look.
"I don't know, mom," Olaf said, "something tells me that 'nice and comfortable' place would've stopped being so nice and comfortable once we got into this discussion, don't you think?" He looked pointedly at the ice surrounding them.
"No it wouldn't have! Elsa's powers never act up if I'm with her. That's why you two should've told me about these feelings you were developing, and let me handle it with Elsa instead of just hiding them and doing all this secret stuff!"
The teens looked pointedly at Elsa, who was still quietly sobbing in Anna's embrace, and then back to Anna, the unspoken accusation evident. Secrets like yours, you mean?
"Yes," Anna retorted, "Elsa has this magic that will freeze the whole world if I'm not there to calm her down. What's your excuse?"
Olaf had to have inherited his snarkiness from somewhere, after all.
"With all due respect, mother," said Margaret, "haven't you always taught us that true love is the most powerful magic of all?"
Anna made a groan of frustration. The kids knew all about the long-ago events of Elsa's coronation but were obviously distorting the message. "Sacrificing yourself for someone is not the same as having sex with them!" Anna winced at how ridiculous her statement sounded, even to herself. "…Why do I even need to explain this to you?!"
"You don't, mother… it's just that love makes us do things we would normally never do. Things like sacrificing yourself, or…" It was clear enough what Margaret was too embarrassed to say out loud in her mother's presence.
All three of them were shivering by this point, but out of concern for Elsa's fragile emotional state, none of them said a word about it, instead stubbornly enduring the cold from the ice surrounding them.
Fortunately, they were saved by Kristoff's resonant voice from down the hall. "Anna? Elsa? What's going on out there?" Sleepy, but nevertheless awoken by the commotion and the cold air from the frozen hallway, Kristoff stood at the door of his and Anna's room, having thrown on a warm fur coat over his nightshirt.
"We're okay!" Anna shouted back. "We'll be over in just a moment!" She motioned to Olaf and Margaret, who obediently scurried over to Kristoff, and then gently disentangled herself from Elsa and led the unresisting queen by the hand, following them.
It had been some seventeen years since their last great awkward family discussion – back then, before their children had been born. And now they were overdue for another one.
"Alright, so, uh, Kristoff, we need to fill you in on some things…"