Elsa wasn't entirely sure what she was doing, why she was fighting for the right to become Veerle. She wanted to help Anna, yes, wanted to help her care for the fallen, and she knew the only way to respectfully do that was to become Veerle. After all Anna had been through, she would not add to her suffering by trampling over the traditions of her people just to "help out". No, if she was going to do it, she was going to do it the right way.
Still, there was more to it than just that, but what?
"Why?" Anna pushed off the tree and turned back to face Elsa, her voice soft and desperate. Clearly her mind was wandering along the same avenue as Elsa's was. "Why would you want to help me?"
It came to her in that moment. Because she had been where Anna was. Because she understood and still felt the agony of loss that Anna was now feeling so acutely. Because she knew what it felt like to be alone.
Because of him.
Elsa felt her expression suddenly darkened; she just couldn't help it. "Because he murdered my family, too."
Anna blinked. Her expression went from taken aback to full comprehension to resolved in a matter of a few seconds. She drew in a breath and straightened her spine and for the briefest moment, Elsa thought she could have been royalty. "Very well," she said solemnly.
The younger girl walked forward until she was standing before Elsa again. She gave a nod. "Elsa, daughter of King Adgar and Queen Idun of Arendelle, Winter's Promise–" Elsa worried in that moment that she was going to restate all of her titles again, "Rebel Queen, you have proven yourself to the Veerle to be of like mind and heart. You have shed blood in our name and offered your life for the benefit of the clan. You have shown courage, character, dedication, fortitude of mind, and strength of body, all attributes worthy of the Veerle. We welcome you."
Anna paused a beat, frowning slightly, then her eyes dropped to Elsa's waist. "May I?" she asked quietly, motioning to the knife on Elsa's belt.
Elsa nodded her consent and pulled it free, handing it to Anna. She watched as Anna flipped her left hand skyward and ran the blade over her palm, following the silvery line of what seemed to be a faint scar. When she was done, she looked at Elsa expectantly. "Now you."
Elsa's breath caught in her throat. Anna wanted her hand. Her hand. Girlhood fears stirred in her chest, fears of losing control of herself, of hurting others, and her palms tingled and itched with power. It was very nearly enough for her to change her mind about going through with the rights. Very, very nearly, but no. No. She was stronger than that, stronger than her fear. As Papa taught you to be.
She hesitated for but a moment longer before she offered her left hand to Anna, dutifully ignoring the slight frown of confusion from the other girl. She grit her teeth, but otherwise showed no outward response to the bite of pain that lanced through her hand when Anna slid the blade across. When it was done, the redhead met her eyes, seemingly seeking out the status of her well-being. Elsa gave a small nod to show that she was alright.
Anna drew in a deep breath, blowing it out quickly through her mouth, her eyes now on their bloody palms. She just stared at them for a long contemplative beat and then nodded to herself. She pressed her hand to Elsa's and held it tight, whispering words rapidly over them in a tongue that Elsa didn't know. Elsa was familiar with many languages, so she assumed it was Traveller speak as there were very few outside of their community who knew it and it wasn't something she would have been tutored in as a child.
When she was done, Anna brought her eyes up once more to meet Elsa's and took another breath before finally saying, "Through this blood bond, we are now kin." She then let go of Elsa's hand and took a step back, and for the briefest and oddest of moments, Elsa missed the contact.
Anna lingered there, shifting from foot to foot, looking as if she wanted to say something of breathtaking importance, then she seemed to settle. She handed the blade back. "Thank you," she whispered. Elsa didn't have time to respond before the gypsy girl turned and headed down into the camp, unthinkingly wiping the blood from her palm down the side of her saffron bodice and onto her double-layered olive and juniper skirts as she went.
Elsa watched her for a handful of seconds before she stepped up to Marsh who was rather tenaciously stripping the leaves off a nearby bush to munch on. She reached into one of the saddlebags and pulled out two strips of clean cloth, one to clean her knife and the other for her hand. When the first task was done, she slipped the knife back into its sheath on her belt before she wrapped the second strip around her sliced palm. She secured it with a knot, using her teeth to pull it tight.
She thought to offer the same treatment to Anna, but as she watched the redhead resolutely square herself off, she decided not to break the girl's concentration, her desperate determination. Her wound was like Elsa's own, long, but not deep. It had been just enough to bleed, but nothing more. It could be tended to later… after Anna's family was cared for.
Her family now, too, she realized, a slightly eerie feeling shooting down her spine, leaving her unsettled. To be claimed kin was to become a part of a Veerle clan, to be kindred. It was like she'd almost had a family again. The disquiet was replaced by a swell of sadness. She hadn't even gotten to meet them and now she was helping send them off on their final journey. She had the distinct feeling that had she been welcomed into the clan while they all still lived, she would have undoubtedly liked them. Anna's sweet, friendly, open nature told her that much. No one could maintain such effervescence surrounded by hard, hurtful people, and the sudden loss of the could-have-beens that Elsa now felt made her heart ache.
Sucking in a steeling breath, she gazed down at the devastation and considered what needed to be done, considered what would make the task ahead easier, at least physically. She looked at Marsh. "Come on now," she said quietly to him, "We must all do our part."
Be strong had been the last thought she'd had as she'd turned away from Elsa and moved down into the campsite and her mind continued now to repeat it over and over as she worked. Everything was just so horrible and surreal that it was almost as if the sheer disbelief she was experiencing had gotten her brain stuck on this endless loop of her last conscious thought.
Be strong, be strong, be strong.
Elsa had brought Marsh down to help. She'd fashioned a makeshift litter out of some branches and rope and had attached it to the horse so that he could haul the bodies to the remaining caravans. It was Veerle custom, should the deceased have no direct family living out of their caravan, to place the body within, along with all their worldly possessions, and set it aflame. Those who did have living family members in need of the caravan were given up to the Endless Road on pyres.
As most of the caravans had been burned already by the king's men, Anna had decided that the easiest thing to do would be to place all her kin in the remaining caravans and release their spirits together. She knew they would have approved of the decision, especially her father, as there was no clan closer to one another than hers had been. They were family and they would make their final journey together.
Anna wished for a brief, aching moment that she was going with them and immediately she heard her father in her head reprimanding her. Never wish for death, Anna, not for others and not for yourself, no matter the pain you're in, his memory whispered.
He'd said that to her when she was small, when her brother's rough play had accidentally killed the baby bird she had been trying to save after it had fallen from its nest. Eight-year-old Anna had been so very furious that she had wished aloud that it had been Torrin who had died instead of her bird. Papa, having heard the heated words, had taken her aside to warn her about speaking such things over others, to warn her of words having power.
Anna, being Anna, had of course immediately worried for her brother's life and had begun shouting, "I didn't mean it! Take me instead!" in the middle of camp. Her father had shushed her and pulled her close when she'd started to cry. That was when he'd told her never to wish for death. "Life is precious, all life," he had said. "Everyone is redeemable. Everyone is worth forgiving. Forgive and that will be enough." So she had forgiven Torrin, and him her, making things like new once more, but she'd never forgotten her father's words.
As they worked to move the bodies, she did her best to forcibly remember the happy memories she had of her loved ones and staunchly ignore the contorted grimaces of death that had replaced all their vibrancy.
Torrin teasing her relentlessly, his mischievous grin sliding easily across his face.
Sonja brushing her hair out for her in the morning, teaching her how to braid it.
Aderyn whispering secrets to her in the dark, silly things, but things Anna still held in confidence.
Little Lilliah being born, her cries of new life that had turned to infectiously ceaseless giggles as she had aged.
Papa holding her close by the fire, the rich timbre of his voice filling the circle as he told story after story, lulling Anna to sleep with scenes of adventure, courage, and love flashing through her head.
Mama, with her stern looks and her–
Anna all but stumbled to a halt. Mama. She whipped around in place, turning in a full circle and then back again, eyes darting all about, searching desperately. Where was she?
Elsa seemed to notice her frantic movements and slowed Marsh to a stop a few feet from the caravan they had been placing the last of the bodies in. "Anna…?"
Anna ignored her and took off, running all around the camp, checking everything. She checked in the tall grasses and under the caravans. She checked the few tents and around the treeline. She even checked the smoldering remains of the caravans that had been burned by the king's men, looking for bones that she may have missed, ignoring the bite of pain as the still-hot wreckage burned her fingers as she shuffled things aside in her mad search.
It was only when a hand clamped around her upper arm and pulled her around, forcing her to drop a smoking plank of wood from her grip that she even registered the fact that Elsa was still calling her name. "Anna!" The older girl shook her slightly with the hand around her arm. "What are you doing? What's wrong?" The was a very clear twinge of anxious confusion in the blonde's voice.
"She isn't here. She isn't here!" Anna exclaimed.
"Who?" Elsa demanded. "Who isn't here?"
"Mama!"
"Wait. Your mother isn't here?"
Anna nodded and her hands started shaking. "I-I can't find her."
"...Are you sure she's not in one of the caravans?"
"I didn't miss her, Elsa. I wouldn't have missed her!" But she had, Anna realized. She hadn't missed her mother's body, but her head had been so messed up, so fogged by anguish, that she'd missed completely that her mother was actually missing.
Elsa let go of Anna's arm and held up her hands in a calming manner. "Okay! Okay. Let's look for her again, alright? Just to be sure." Anna gave a shaky nod.
And they did look, they looked everywhere, in the camp and in the surrounding woods, but found nothing.
"How did I not notice? How did I not see?" Anna murmured as they reluctantly ended their search. She shook her head despondently and stared at the ground.
"Anna…"
"I should have seen. I should have known…"
"Anna."
"I should have– I should have–"
"Anna!"
She snapped her head up at the exclamation and realized that Elsa was standing before her, not a foot away, her hands curled into tight balls at her sides and her expressive eyes radiating clear concern.
Anna felt it as a hiccup first, a bubble caught in her throat. She watched as the tightness around Elsa's eyes soften and her expression grew infinitely sad. A split second before it happened, Anna realized it was a reflection of her own expression. "Anna…" Elsa whispered and the sympathy in her tone was too much.
That's when she broke. Her face crumpled and her hiccup turned into a full-fledged sob. She lurched forward a step into a suddenly-surprised-looking Elsa and pressed her face into the older girl's shoulder. She took no notice of how the blonde immediately stiffened at the contact and instead wrapped her arms the best she could around her waist, pulling herself as far in as possible and clutching tight to Elsa.
Elsa stood rigidly as Anna sobbed into her. She had not been expecting this, nor did she really know what to do. She couldn't even remember the last time someone had sought out comfort in her arms, if anyone ever had. Not that Anna was really in her arms. It was considerably more like she was in Anna's, in a death-grip, while her own limbs hung paralyzed at her sides.
The thing was, she wanted to comfort Anna. She wanted to crush the girl to her and banish the suffering from her heart, just as she had wished someone had been able to do for her after the murder of her parents.
But Elsa didn't really know how to do that, not anymore. Truly, she had forgotten. She wondered briefly if she'd ever really learned, realized sadly that she was broken. Her arms could not enfold, could not pull close; her hands could not caress, could not soothe. She knew they would likely only cause more damage if they did.
When the girl finally quieted down, Elsa offered the only solace she could manage in that moment – words. "We will find her," she said. Anna, sniffling, loosened her white-knuckle grip on Elsa and inched back a little so she could turn her now-blotchy face upward to look at Elsa. "If she is alive, if there is any way, we will find her."
For a long moment, Anna just stared up at her before she finally gave a nod. She let go and stepped back. Elsa waited for the telltale flush of embarrassment to rise up the gypsy's cheeks, but it did not come. Elsa realized that the girl was simply too exhausted by it all to even be bothered by her loss of control. She did, however, whisper, "I'm sorry."
Elsa shook her head to ward off the apology, but said nothing.
Anna turned and started slowly toward the center of camp where Marsh stood.
By the time they'd finished collecting the bodies, had stacked the wood up around the remaining caravans, and she'd sung the Song of Remembrance and Release over her family before lighting the fires, Anna was dragging, her injured arm held tightly to her chest and her cheeks pale with pain and bone-deep fatigue. Elsa looked was tired as well.
"I think you're bleeding again," Elsa said softly. "You should let me look at it."
"It's fine," Anna replied, her voice devoid of everything except complete exhaustion, and Elsa seemed to understand as her face softened at Anna's dismissal. It was far easier to deal with physical pain than emotional.
So they just stood there, watching the caravans burn and they stayed there until everything had turned to ash. The storm seemed to be right on top of them now.
"Do you know why we're called Veerle?" Anna asked Elsa, staring blankly out at the smoldering remains of her entire life.
Elsa remained silent.
"The means 'battle traveller'. Traditionally, the Veerle were great warriors who would travel the lands offering their swords to those in need, or to those with the coin." She shrugged slightly. "We were made of fire and glory and honor, and our names were sung with both fear and admiration… But we turned from the old ways, into those who tell the tales of war to entertain instead of partaking in them. Our original path faded, our deeds forgotten by the world, even by many of our own. And this is what it has gotten us," she spat out the last words, bending and jerkily scooping some ashes from the pyre into her hand. "We allowed ourselves to grow soft, complacent with our lot. We sought peace with words instead of a blade and only received death in return."
Anna paused, clenching her jaw tight, and straightened. A minute passed, then two. Finally, though, she sucked in a deep, harsh breath and said, "I will kill King Hans in the name of my family and in the name of the true Veerle."
Life is precious, all life. Everyone is redeemable, her father whispered in her mind again.
She frowned down at the ground. No, Papa, he is not. Opening her hand, she released the ashes to the wind.
It started to rain.
Author's Notes: Because you were all so helpful when I asked for your input (and also simply because I adore you all), I thought I would drop this lil chapter earlier than I normally do for your reading pleasure.
I know, I know, ANGST. They're both just sooooooo angsty, but I just feel given the situation they're allowed a little angst, right? I promise this will lighten up more soon though! And then get darker, and lighter, and darker again because that's how I DO. Ups and downs, ups and downs. But I do fully promise this is NOT a story of just never-ending angst.
