The sun had come out by the time Emma had awoken. Elsa suggested Emma ride in the back so Elsa wouldn't have to put her arms around her injured waist. Emma agreed and they started to ride off back into the woods.
Emma wound her arms around Elsa's middle, palms flat against her belly. She couldn't see but Elsa's face flushed, her heart thumping in her chest. With no knowledge of what she was doing to Elsa, Emma wiggled closer to her until their bodies were pressed against each other. Elsa grabbed for her canteen and opened the top. She drowned the remainder of her water, suddenly feeling parched.
"Do you know when we're going to arrive at the mountain?" Emma asked, her warm breath caressing the back of Elsa's neck. For the first time ever, Elsa shivered.
"It shouldn't be far now" Anna was the one who answered cause Elsa couldn't formulate words in her current condition. "Probably another couple hours"
Emma grumbled. This was taking forever.
"If you think this is taking a long time, you should have seen how long it took me to get to the top of the north mountain. My horse ran back to Arendelle a quarter of the way up"
"You walked all the way up there?" Emma gasped.
Anna nodded. "Yep"
"Wow"
They rode for the next couple of hours and finally the forest started to clear out and they were now riding into mountainous territory. The change was so sudden that Emma felt like they walked through a portal. The terrain was a mixture of dirt and pebbles. When Emma asked what the horses would eat, Elsa assured her that she had brought along some food for them to have once they got to this part of the trip.
Emma could see the mountain in the distance and she gulped. It looked very, very steep and she wondered if the horses would manage to get up there.
They set up camp on a small hill and ate dinner which consisted of lutefish in a jar which Emma was less then happy about, bread and some fruit which was for the horses.
After eating her fill of lutefish, Emma sat against a rock, swearing to never eat it again. Not only was it fish, something that Emma had never exactly enjoyed, it was pickled fish. She never expressed an interest in anything pickled unless it was pickles that came with her hamburger. However, due to her excessive eating of it since this had been her first meal of the day, Anna believed her to love it and pulled another jar from her bag, offering it to Emma. Emma shook her head no, telling her she was too full. Anna nodded and put it back in her bag suggesting with a smile they can have it again tomorrow. The smile Emma returned was more of a grimace than anything else.
After about an hour of talking, the sky was now black and littered with stars. They decided it was time to sleep.
Emma slept a little ways away from Elsa and Anna who were snuggled together. She listened as Elsa told Anna a bed time story as if Anna was still a little girl. Something about how when they were kids, before the accident, they used to go ice fishing with their mother. She listened to Elsa's giggling as she retold the story of how she got impatient one day and used her powers to crack open the ice, freeze the fish, toss them out and then thaw them out again. When she had shown her mother how fast they could fish, her mother got very mad and grounded her for a day. Anna laughed and said, "If you think that's bad, you should have seen Mother's face when she caught me in the kitchen. Covered head to toe in flour"
Elsa chuckled. "What were you doing?"
"I was trying to bake a cake! For your tenth birthday"
"Anna, did you seriously think at seven you could bake a cake? You can't even do it now"
"Hey!" Anna cried out indignantly.
Elsa laughed and said, "Come on Anna. Time to sleep"
"Okay" Anna grumbled.
"I love you"
"Love you too"
Emma shifted once to get into a more comfortable position and fell asleep.
She was walking through the mountain but it was different. The sky and the rocks were completely black as if someone had taken a paintbrush and painted everything. She felt like she had been walking for hours but didn't seem to get any closer to her destination. It was like walking the wrong way on an escalator. The air was thin around her and breathing was difficult. Her lungs were burning from the lack of air.
Go back down the mountain, she thought to herself. But her legs wouldn't abide to her brain.
Suddenly there was a squelching sound like a boot going through mud. She looked down but it wasn't mud. It was something red. She knelt down and dipped a finger through it. It was hot and thick and her heart hammered.
She looked upwards and her eyes widened.
There was a body about ten feet from her, something she hadn't noticed before. The recognizable body was what made her scream.
The ice blue dress was splattered with blood as well as the platinum blond hair. Emma managed to run up to the body and she gave a strangled cry as she stared into the sightless blue eyes. The blood that was pooling from the head quickened at an unnatural speed. Emma didn't notice how it was rising until she felt it lap at her arms. She looked down in horror and she got up to run only to slam her head into something hard and unseeable.
Black dots swam across her vision and she stumbled backwards. The blood was at her neck now. She looked down only to see blood. She looked around, desperately searching for her, screaming her name. Nothing. Her screams were cut off with a gurgle as the blood entered her mouth. She spat it out in disgust, unable to get the metallic taste out of her mouth. But the blood kept coming. Filling her mouth, her eyes, until she was drowning in it.
Then someone was shaking her. Hard.
"Emma! Emma, wake up!"
Her eyes shot open and she gasped, sucking in air greedily.
"Emma?" The voice was softer now.
Emma gasped, struggling to calm her breathing. She looked up and saw blue eyes look down at her in concern.
"Elsa?" She whispered.
Elsa nodded. "Are you okay, Emma? You were shouting my name"
Emma shot up and began to pat her body. It was soaked. But it wasn't blood. She was drenched in sweat.
"Oh god" She whimpered, her head falling against the rock. "It wasn't real"
"No" Elsa said softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Emma shook her head, tears sliding down her face. If anything ever happened to Elsa, she wouldn't know what to do with herself.
"Emma?" Elsa said, voice laced with concern. She gasped as she saw the tears. "Oh god, Emma. You're crying"
Without a word, she pulled Emma into a hug. Emma sobbed into her neck as Elsa soothed her gently.
"You were dead" Emma let out a shuddering breath. "You were dead and there was nothing I could do"
"It was just a dream"
Emma tore her face away from her neck to look up at her. "But what if something happens to you? What if you fall? What if someone tries to hurt you? What if-"
Elsa placed a finger to her lips. "Listen to me Emma Swan. I will not die. Not as long as you need me. I promise" She leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Do you understand?"
"Yes" Emma breathed.
"Good" She laid down and pulled Emma down with her. "Now sleep"
Emma swallowed her tears and nuzzled into Elsa's neck, feeling safe and secure in her arms. She lulled off to sleep listening to Elsa's soft and even breaths.
Sometime during the night, Anna awoke from a dream and with a start, realized Elsa was not with her. She sat up and saw Elsa sleeping nearby. Upon closer inspection she realized she was sleeping with Emma. She tilted her head in confusion. Why did Elsa move? Was it something she did?
Anna laid back down, a look of pain etched across her face. Even though there were two people five feet from her, she felt alone.
