Door

Anna memorized Elsa's door. She knew every facet of the blue textures on the white background like a scene from winter. She could always recall the exact sound the wood made to three knocks. She knew the feel of the cold, metal handle that was always locked, budging only a bit with every wiggle but never allowing entry.

Anna made a habit of leaving her door wide open, at first as an open invitation for Elsa to come in whenever she passed by. She never passed by. Then keeping the door open was about catching Elsa as she walked down the hall. She never walked in that direction.

"Your sister needs time for her studies," Papa said gently while Anna read him one of her storybooks from her perch atop his knee.

"But all she does is study," Anna said.

Papa sighed and shifted so Anna was facing him. He pulled her book away, sure to mark the page, and brushed the stray streak of platinum blonde from her cheek and behind her ear.

"Your sister will be queen one day—"

"I know, I know," Anna insisted. She let out a dramatic huff and crossed her arms.

"Yes but you may be more understanding if you knew what it meant," he said.

He pulled Anna in closer into a hug and she rested her head against her father's chest, for once not decorated in medals, and fancy roping. It was soft cotton and her father's warmth beneath her head as he let his fingers brush through her hair.

"Elsa will be queen after I am gone. She carrying a burden you will never have to bear," he explained, "In more ways than one."

The last part was added quietly and Anna wondered if she was even supposed to hear it. Papa sounded sadder than she'd ever heard him in that moment. And he sighed and held Anna tighter.

"Your sister is the Princess of Arendelle to be queen. Her life does not belong to herself the way yours belongs to you," he said.

"Well who does it belong to?"

"It belongs to you, and her subjects. Just as I belong to you, and Elsa, and all of Arendelle. You started reading your Shakespeare yes?" he said. Anna nodded,"'Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.'"

"She could still open her door," Anna muttered.

"Your sister is doing the best she can," and then he took her and turned her again so they were facing on another once more and he said quite sternly, "You must never ask her to open her door."

Anna assumed it must be something to do with quiet. When Elsa first learned to read the physician said she had the 'reading condition'. Something about the letters reversing in her head making it hard for her to read anything properly. He said it was common like Anna using her left hand for everything instead of her right. Perhaps quiet made it easier for Elsa to do work.

So Anna decided to let it be, or at least to lighten up on how many times a day she asked for Elsa's attention. And soon she started making acquaintances with the portraits on the walls.

Elsa's door reminded the illusive, sole entrance to a fortress Anna could never reach. She never saw Elsa leave, she'd fall asleep in the hall watching, hoping to see her sister for more than three seconds to no avail. And then later that day Elsa would be in the library or just leaving the kitchen with tea.

"Hi Elsa!"

"Hi."

She didn't even look up. She focused on her tea, or a book in her hand, or she straightened those stupid gloves. And then she'd disappear behind the door again. They played that game of hide and seek multiple times a week and Elsa always won.

And then their parents died and Elsa didn't even appear for the funeral. No tears, no emotion, her face was pale and stone. She said nothing to Anna and nothing to anyone. People pitied her, the youngest queen Arendelle had ever seen, forced by tragedy to wear her father's crown too soon.

Anna was outside the door again.

"Elsa please," she begged, "I know you're in there. People are asking where you've been."

Nothing.

"Everyone tells me to have courage…please Elsa I'm right here just open the door."

Nothing.

But Anna stayed outside that door for hours that day. She swore, every now and again, she could hear the sniffles of Elsa, just against the door on the other side. She was inches from her sister but a million miles were between them with the door in the way.

Anna fell asleep outside the door in effort just to be close to Elsa. But she woke up in her own bed. If she had been awake enough to see she would know that it was Elsa herself that had carried the smaller girl down the hall placed her beneath her own covers. But when she woke it was only a dream that she felt Elsa's hands, gloved as they may be, on her shoulders and brush against her cheek as a blanket was pulled over her.

But her own closed door was the firs thing she saw when she woke in the early hours of the morning when the sun was still far below the horizon. Unable to sleep she wandered down the kitchens to make herself tea in hopes of not waking any of the staff earlier than she had to.

She spent a half hour trying to get the water to boil and was near ready to throw the pot.

"You're not very good at this," said Elsa's calm voice from the corner.

Anna jumped what felt like ten feet in the air. She clutched the chest of her black dress, still unchanged from last night, and threw a spoon in the intruder's general direction, missing by at least three feet. Elsa's eyes lazily followed the spoon as it whizzed by her.

"Dear Lord Elsa!" she said.

"Don't swear."

Everything she said was toneless and devoid of any emotion, just like her face. Covered in shadow as she may be in the dim corner, her hair shone in the dark like a streak of silver in the dark of a mine.

Elsa wordlessly relieved Anna of her duties and began boiling the water for tea. Her gloves, as ever, hid the flesh of her hands.

"Were you here the whole time?" Anna asked.

"No."

Even outside the door, with their parents gone, nothing changed. Elsa didn't smile, didn't cry, she didn't give Anna more words than absolutely necessary. Wordlessly the water began to boil and Elsa placed the leaves into the water allowing them to swim freely through the steaming water. She seemed overly careful to avoid actually getting near the heat.

When the tea was brewed she poured two cups. She took hers straight but added three sugar cubes into Anna's before sliding it over to her.

"You remembered," Anna smiled. Papa had always forbade her taking three sugars in her tea and the servants never remembered.

"I'll be queen, I have to remember things."

Leave it to Elsa to turn a completely gentle and warm moment cold and professional. Anna sighed as Elsa left the room without a word, as quietly as she had entered. Anna knew she was off to disappear behind the eternally closed door that may as well be a stone wall.

On Elsa's 21st birthday she, as per tradition, commissioned her coronation portrait. The beautiful painting of Elsa, regal, and cold, and stunning in green, and black, and purple hung next Papa's own in the throne room. Anna made friends with that one too.

"You must be nervous for your big day," Anna chirped to her sister's likeness. "I know you'll do fantastic of course, you've always been a queen, this is just the formality. You've got perfect posture, and you always look so beautiful, and whether you like to show it or not you're incredibly kind when you want to be. If you'd just open your door I could give you this pep talk in person."

From behind her Anna thought she heard the faintest sound of someone's footsteps but whoever it was vanished like a shadow when they knew they were found out. They were probably off to hide behind a closed door.