Though Elsa had lived for all of her near-eighteen years in Arendelle, her only knowledge of the network of villages that surrounded the castle came from patches of worn-out memory. She had spent an uncountable amount of time memorising all the maps that she could find, but in practise, all the little alleys seemed to blend into each other and become indistinguishable. All she knew of the land that surrounded the castle was derived from the scraps of flotsam at the edge of her memory, from the time when she and Anna used to play around these places, and those were unreliably faint.

Dalli seemed to know the place better from his previous visits, and he carefully selected deserted backstreets to travel down just in case they were spotted by any of the public – for her safety, of course. She had spent so long hidden away from the villagers that there would be a flurry if she was spotted, and closer to her heart was the issue of her powers; emotion played too huge a part in her ability to control them for her to be comfortable amongst the public yet.

She followed him silently and trusted that they would be back at the castle before anybody spotted their absence, but her mind felt alive with the sparks of ideas and theories. She found it difficult to believe that she had woken up that morning, a day from eighteen and expecting another day of solitude, and now she was sneaking back into the castle with a stranger.

Anna's face popped into her mind, and the thought seemed to puncture her excitement. She had hidden herself from her younger sister for so long that their lives seemed to be distinctly separate, like two orbiting moons that could never align. She had refused every offer, turned away to every knock on the door – she had taken every meal in her room and only left at night in the hope of protecting Anna from the powers she possessed. Now, she was risking all those years of vigilant avoidance for the sake of one day with an oracle. It didn't seem fair on her sister.

"Slow down!" she called out to Dalli, who was already a few paces ahead along an alleyway that stretched behind the market. He had almost been jogging in an attempt to return them home swiftly but without being seen, and he swerved back to retrace his steps when he heard her call out to him. Elsa had slowed to a halt, and was holding on to one of the bricks in the wall that made up a villager's home. She hoped momentarily that there was nobody in it now.

He peered down at her with a look of concern. "We're almost back now – we can be there in time for lunch, if we hurry. They'll need me to serve the starter course as usual, but I doubt they'll have missed me before that . . ."

"Stop," she wheezed, holding a finger to the air in front of him. She hadn't realised how out of breath she was until she was stood in that alley, clasping her knees and puffing out huge breaths of flurried air, sprinkled with flakes of crystallised snow. "I just need to think for a little bit."

Dalli watched as the brick she was clasping slowly frosted over, despite the day being quite warm and autumnal. "I know that this feels strange right now, but it's right. There must be something bigger out there for us."

"It's not that," Elsa replied in an abrupt retort. "I just can't stop thinking about Anna. I followed you out here without even knowing who you are, and yet she's my sister and I haven't seen her in years. Why?"

"Because she's your sister," he said matter-of-factly. "Right now, your powers are so strong that you could hurt her, and you want to keep her safe. It wouldn't matter if I got hurt - like you said, you don't even know me."

She shook her head and cast a hopeless glance at the ice spreading across the brick wall. "I don't want anybody to suffer because of my powers, and that includes strangers." She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, blowing tiny frozen flakes into the breeze. "I just . . . I followed an instinct to come out here. That's not something that I usually do any more."

"Was it a bad instinct?" he enquired softly.

"No!" she exclaimed. "It just wasn't a responsible one."

There was a moment of quiet between them, and Elsa looked up to gauge Dalli's expression. He was watching her sympathetically, and carefully examining the icy pattern growing on the wall. "Look," he began cautiously, "it's clear that you love your sister. It's very clear that if you didn't have your powers any more, the first person you'd speak to would be her, and not a stranger. But that's not going to happen, because you still have your powers. That's why I think you spoke to me – because some part of you knew that I might be able to help."

She shot him a puzzled expression. "I don't understand."

"I'll explain it when we reach the castle, but time's getting on and they'll be serving up lunch soon – we'd better be back before anyone realises that we're missing." He tried to smile comfortingly, though he was just as uncertain about what they were doing as she was, and held out a hand to help her up. She cautiously accepted it and withdrew her other hand from the wall, leaving the spread of ice there to gradually melt into the gutter.

Elsa had barely shut the bedroom door behind her when there was a knock from the other side. For a moment, she thought that it might be Anna, and her heart skipped with fear – her situation was complicated enough without the added factor of her sister's wellbeing – but the cheery voice of a servant drifted through the wood, and she felt a rush of relief.

"I have your meal, Your Highness," called the woman in a sing-song voice which sounded familiar, though her father rotated the servants' rota often so that she could never become too familiar with any of them. She had sometimes considered this to be a blatant attempt to keep her isolated, but a glance at her gloves reminded her in an instant of Anna's accident and her need to be alone – the servants of the castle, just like everybody else, had to be protected from her powers.

She nervously smoothed the crumpled material of her dress and took a few deep breaths. She tried to assess her appearance in the mirror from the imagined perspective of the servant who waited outside, wondering if they would be able to tell that she had just come back. There were a few loose strands of hair dangling over her face that she tried to sweep back into her plaited bun, but other than that, she could pass as simply being a little scruffy.

Though she was still alone for the moment, she put on the brightest smile she could muster from within her inner reserve of false expressions, and tugged her lilac gloves further up her forearms. "Come in," she called out, and watched as the door swung up to reveal a plump, grinning servant.

"Good afternoon, Princess!" the servant exclaimed loudly with a beaming smile. She turned her back to Elsa momentarily to grab the handles of a metallic mobile serving tray, engraved with ornate little waves and ships – if the historical knowledge of one of the first of her servants to use this tray was correct, then it was a trade gift from the royal family of a kingdom many miles down the fjord. This fact always leapt into her mind when she saw the tray being rolled into her room. "Your lunch is served. Would you like to hear what's on the menu?"

"It's fish soup and bread today," Elsa replied immediately, having memorised the menu many years ago after taking so many meals in her room. She saw the momentary look of shock on the servant's face, and it jolted her memory; the name Abeline jumped to her lips. "Thank you, Abeline."

The expression of surprise on the servant's face was replaced by a wider grin. "You're welcome, Your Highness," she giggled, pushing the tray further into the room and laying out its dishes on the dining table. "Now, your father said that he'd already asked you this, but the chef wanted some clarification. As it is your eighteenth birthday tomorrow, is there anything in particular that you'd like to eat?"

Her father hadn't asked her anything, but she wasn't offended by his assumption of her response; it was the same answer to the same question every year. "I don't want anything special," she said with a well-rehearsed smile. "Just prepare the usual."

"Very good," Abeline replied. She had already begun to wheel the tray back out of the room, and was halfway through the doorway when she seemed to have an idea and pause for a moment. The tray was left to keep the door open as she turned with an intrigued expression to meet Elsa's gaze. "Will you still be taking your meals in here tomorrow?"

"Yes," the princess replied.

"So you'll still eat on your own, even though it's your birthday?"

Elsa shot her a bittersweet smile, and nodded. "Yes. I simply prefer it this way." No, I don't. Mental comments aside, the conversation was over, and Abeline gave her one last brief smile before wheeling the tray out and shutting the door behind her.

Lunch was a noisy time of the day – the servants often used the time to clean the corridors, as the rest of the royal family were dining downstairs and so were out of the way. Due to the extra guests from Groveston, the staff had presumably been given especially strict orders as to how clean the castle should be, and so Elsa spent her mealtime listening to the whirring and scraping of the cleaners as they worked.

The lunch downstairs in the dining room must have lasted for a long time, because after the servants had finished their cleaning duties, they had time to linger in the corridors and murmur in hushed voices. She couldn't help but wonder if Dalli was on another corridor in the castle somewhere, doing exactly what the servants outside her door were doing. He had promised to return to her room the next morning if there were no witnesses to prevent it, and she began to contemplate what it was that he was going to explain in the alley.

She allowed herself a moment of daydreaming about what the morning would bring, and without realising it, a storm began to swirl around her. It began as just a few flakes drifting from her fingertips into the summer air, but it grew beyond her control as greater winter winds began to sweep through the room from the palms of her hands. She wasn't making it happen, but there was something about the strength of the emotion forcing this tundra to exist that just made her unwilling to stop it. She knew her limits – if she truly wanted to, she could draw it all back in and make it stop, but she was comfortable for now.

"Elsa?"

She knew the voice that was coming from the other side of her door, and with a jolt, she got to her feet.

"Elsa, are you in there?"

The snowstorm was still swirling around her and she waved her hands frantically in an attempt to settle it, but it only grew at the sound of the voice. The motion of her hands only served to encourage it, and a thin layer of ice began to creep up the walls around her.

"I can't be out here for too long. Let me in!"

With a deep breath, she accepted that the visitor would just have to see the storm. She couldn't stop it now – hopelessly and frighteningly, it was out of her control.

She wrapped one icy hand around the door handle, which froze immediately at her shaky touch, and pulled the door towards her. Out in the corridor, stood with his arms folded, was Dalli.

He stopped and stared at the snow in silence for a few tense moments, mouth open in surprise. She waited for his reaction – or, more precisely, she waited for him to see the uncontrollable state of the storm and leave for fear of his own life.

"Well . . . aren't you going to let me in?"

Elsa blinked in shock. "You want to come in?"

He smiled in return. "That's what I'm here for. But if it's alright with you, I might have to be quick – I still have my duties to Groveston, even if I'd rather be up here."

"You don't mind – well – this?" she exclaimed, indicating to the storm around her.

He took a second glance at the wintry conditions, and shook his head. "The cold never bothered me."

And with that, he entered.