If I forget to set the alarm and sleep on through the dawn don't remind me
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Anna was certainly bold. And that was the kindest word Elsa could think of. A snarl twitched at her lips. "I told you my fears for your magic, fair is fair."
"Yes but these are-"
"AND I told you my dreams for the eyes!" Her nails bite into her palm and she wants to deny everything. She's really reconsidering her position on that whole 'snatch Anna's eyes and leave her to die in the wilderness' thing. It was really only Marshmallow that had argued her away from it. And he was just a familiar really she shouldn't give him so much freedom. She shouldn't be so nice to her apprentice.
It wasn't how she was taught...
"Fine."
"And I've been putting up with your attitude and I'm pretty sure the dog can talk but he's ignoring me and I think-"
"I SAID FINE!"
"...oh." Oh. Well. That was. Unexpected. "Wait really? Just like that?"
Biting back the urge to snap at her young charge or take a stab at her intelligence, she nodded sharply. Sighing. Anna's words registering just then, she blinked slowly and regarded Anna through narrowed eyes.
"You think the dog can talk?" Anna's cheeks flushed. Well when she said it like that, it sounded just this side of crazy.
"Err, that is I meant-"
"He's not a dog. I've told you before, he's my familiar. If he'd be any kind of regular creature he'd be a wolf."
"... You aren't denying that whole part about the talking."
"..."
"I knew it!"
"Can we please just get on with this!?" Elsa snapped, bringing Anna out of a small victory dance. The young woman nodded, expression serious but eyes still glowing and warm. Taking a deep breath, she smiled encouragingly at Elsa, holding out a hand. She hesitated for only a second before filling the space. Their fingers interlocked and palms pressed tight, Anna took a moment to close her eyes and call to the magic within her.
Elsa bit back a hiss of pain, her own magic as anti-social as always. She reigned it in, though it lashed out at her a few more times before settling down. Every inch of her palms pricked and tingling unpleasantly as Anna's magic met her own. Anna's eyes opened and though she felt an urge to duck her head to hide, Elsa met her gaze. Apologetic.
But Anna wasn't accusing. She seemed, if anything, understanding. The bite of her magic, vicious and temperamental, brought her out of the daze she'd fallen in. She squeezed Anna's hands and the girl turned serious again, nodding once.
"Elsa," she sighed out the name, pulling on their hands so the woman would step closer to her. Her eyes closed again and she leaned closer. "Oh Healer of my eyes and Teacher of Ways. I beg of you the gift of a Treasured Memory. One of Great Love."
Elsa wanted to tell her to calm down, being so serious was silly and unnecessary. But that could break her intense concentration. She was nervous enough, pointing that out would do no good. So she took a deep breath and craned her neck down so she might press her forehead against Anna's. Her eyes snapped open, glowing and swirling with magic. Pride and something warmed her.
"The first time I ever healed someone was for my mother. I was six. She was dying. I'd never seen her so angry before, when she stumbled out of her bedroom and saw me with a knife and the neighbor's dog dead on the floor. And all she said was, 'You couldn't do that in the garage?' and then she fell to her knees and hugged me and. We just sat there all night. In that pool of blood and crying. And it was the happiest I'd ever been."
The air around her is thick with magic. A dark shroud of her own being choked by the overwhelmingly powerful energy of Anna's magic. Her skin hurts, like a sunburn. Her magic is being forced back, and only Anna's is touching her and it's. It's unlike anything she's ever experienced. She's crying. It hurts and it soothes. It's making her feel, EVERYTHING, and all at once.
She misses her mother so dearly, it's an ache rivaled only by the immense pain of curing the sick and crippled. She misses her youth, the innocence she'd had and the face that'd been hers. She loves Marshmallow, because despite everything he stands by her side, forever true. She. She adores Anna. The light and warmth of her so refreshing, so wonderful, so-
"FUCK!" Pain shoots through her temple. As though she was struck with a bat across her forehead. She falls away from Anna, reaching up to- "What the Hell did you do!?"
"I," her round eyes are watery. Had. Had she witnessed Elsa's thoughts? "I was just trying to help! I'm sorry I-"
"My horns are gone!" She doesn't know if her tone is accusing or disbelieving or what. It just is, she states fact. She realizes only too late what she's said. She nearly slaps herself. But. But Anna just smiles and nods.
"Yes! I was hoping that would happen. My magic can be very lazy but it responds well to you," she admits with a laugh. Sheepish. "Well, come on! Show me!"
Anna had known. About the horns. Anna had known. And she'd been so careful, when did-
"They were the first thing you saw," she breathed, eyes wide, trembling hands reaching up up up for the hem of her hood. Responding immediately to the request despite herself. Despite her limbs felt heavy and cold, as though weighted down by miniature glaciers. "You saw my face but..." her fingers twist in the fabric but her limbs stop. Truly frozen. "But you followed me. You INSISTED on following me... Why?"
Anna doesn't answer immediately. She stands there for a good bit, staring down blue eyes clouded with confusion. A spark of something that speaks of fear. So she wears her biggest and best smile, stepping forward and reaching for Elsa's trembling hands. Magic still sparks from her fingertips, leaping to meet Elsa before they can touch. It causes Elsa to flinch but that doesn't deter Anna.
The hood falls back.
I'd rather be dreaming of someone than living alone
Elsa was just eight when she was abandoned. By no fault of her blood. At least, no fault of her mother. Mother had died in a much quicker way than cancer in her bones. And no amount of pain and death sacrifices could bring her back. When it came right down to it, the dark magic that ran in her family, the magic her mother could never harness, always feared, it was as worthless as the tears she wasted on the dead.
Cry not for the dead, Mother had always said. Cry for the living that suffer them.
It felt so different when the dead was her mother. She was too young to be without family. She'd just gotten her mother back. It wasn't fair. Later, when her grandmother, high priestess of something vile that Elsa would come to destroy, later she'd learn that her magic was supposedly her tool to balance how unfair life was. Beyond even that, the truth she would learn is that magic is a conscious thing and will not be used as a tool.
Magic had needs. It feeds off of emotion, memory. Fear and love, hate and pain and pleasure. Joy and hot hot rage. Sometimes it's demanding. Sometimes it feeds off of blood. Sometimes it feeds off of death and life. Souls.
She spent a year of her life wandering. Mostly running. Her magic was, is, anything but nice, and though it protects her, it causes terrible awful trouble everywhere she goes. In a way, it's awfully good luck that her grandmother finds her. Teaches her. Awful, mostly, but some good did come of it... She at least knew how to control her magic, well enough to wrestle control into her hands. So when she healed others, no one had to die, no blood had to be spilt but her own. Pain and blood spills were only temporary, weren't they?
So her magic started etching scars into her. Tattoos, she called them. Trying to wear them with pride, but covering them with shame - and a hooded cloak to make her mysterious. It did other things. Her toes were webbed. Her ears were not her own, more similar to a beast. She had a tail. Half of her body was being taken over by a case of green, reptilian scales. She'd had horns. But they are gone. Leaving a pale canvas covered in mountainous ridges of magnificently ugly scar tissue. A crooked nose.
She was so terrifying to gaze upon, she'd induced labour in the heavily pregnant only by allowing a glimpse of her face. Children screamed and cried and shrieked that saw her face. Fully grown men, fighters lovers philosophers, had become physically ill and shit and piss themselves with just a moment of study upon her horrendous, marked face.
Since the first day magic had truly taken its toll upon her, she had only ever dared dream that someone could stand the sight of her. In her dreams, she clasped hands with a beautiful person. A person so beautiful her eyes could not perceive of them. Only their voice. Only their warm, comforting presence. They loved her, and she loved them.
But dreams were only dreams, they ended with her waking into a world that filled her with bitterness.
This felt like a dream. But. Really, it felt much more like a nightmare. Her hood was down. Her hood was down. She could feel the sun warm her cheeks, but distress let loose her control over her magic, the weather responding accordingly. Cold wind swept through the trees - at least they weren't out anywhere someone could see her - and the sunlight grew weak.
"Beautiful," Anna said. And she was standing so close already, but she stepped closer. Had her arms always been wound behind Elsa's neck? The Healer couldn't know. Anna was touching her, tracing the network of scars spider-webbing across her face. Reverent. Awed. "You're beautiful, Elsa."
She wouldn't be able to recall how she untangled their limbs, if asked. Just that a sudden fury hit her and she ripped herself away without hesitation.
"Liar," she spat.
"I'm not," Anna insisted before she had a chance to rip into the girl. "You were the first thing I saw since I'd been a little girl-"
"You're still just a stupid little girl!" Anna nodded, continuing,
"And besides that, you healed me. I've seen you heal others. I've seen you when no one sees you. I've seen you lash out at everyone and anyone around you to chase them away, lest they get too close, see your face," Elsa grinds her teeth, eyes squeezed shut. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl. "But you won't scare me. You can't. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I won't give you up. I won't give up on you."
"If I'm so beautiful," Elsa spits out, blazing blues opening to glare into Anna's windows to the soul. "Then why did you remove my horns? Were they not so, so gorgeous!?"
"They were," Anna admits. Blushing, "They were... actually pretty majestic." Elsa laughs. It sounds insane. It might be. "But you hid them. Ashamed. You didn't want them."
"Their removal won't change anything!"
"Their removal is already changing you," Anna needed to not step so close to her. "You're frightened. You don't have to be. I just want to give you freedom."
"You, you," she couldn't decide what to say. Couldn't admit to anything. She reached up to grab fistfulls of her hair and for the first time in forever her knuckles didn't knock into horns on the way up. And it struck her. The breath left her body and her eyes felt wet and and and-
She was crying, smoothing her hands over her forehead. Those horns had been so thick, taking up the whole of her forehead and. And scar tissue remained but they were gone. The hood would droop terribly. She'd look ridiculous now. Unbidden, laughter that bordered on insane burst right out of her. So she was laughing and crying and touching her face uncontrollably.
Anna was kneeling before her - when had her knees buckled? - reaching out, smoothing her own palms over the immense amount of scar tissue.
"I'm sorry I couldn't entirely rid you of them. Scars are difficult."
"I know." And when had she taken those hands in either of hers? Why was she pulling Anna to her in a fierce hug, squeezing her eyes shut even as more tears forced their way out? "Th-thanks."
"Always."
"So," a deep rumbling thunder cloud of a voice jolted them apart. Marshmallow lay close, head on his paws, watching them with what could only be a smile baring his deadly fangs. "Does this mean I can talk again?"