"You failed everyone!" Papa's voice was clearer than ever, ringing through the ice palace. "You froze your sister. You abandoned your kingdom. You left your people helpless. You are no Queen."
"Bu–but it was an acci–accident Papa," Elsa's eight year old self stammered, backing away. "I di–didn't mean to–to hurt anyone."
"But you did!" the vision of her father roared back. "Anna is dead because of you! Arendelle suffers through an eternal winter—a winter you brought to them. Your people freeze in their very homes. How could you do this Elsa? How!"
Elsa stared at her feet. At her distorted reflection in the ice beneath them. She was small, and helpless, and alone. Everything was her fault. She wished she could just disappear. She was tiny and cold, but there was nowhere to hide. Papa seemed so much larger, more impressive. More imposing. More angry than he ever had been. Angrier than Mom. Elsa shook with fear, not really understanding what was happening. She tried so hard to control her powers. To keep everything in. She had tried everything. In the end she had simply pushed people away. Hopefully far enough that she could never hurt them again.
But it wasn't. It was never far enough. And even if those people didn't know it, they could still hurt her. Elsa thought of her sister, brave, bold little Anna. Red hair in braids, the shock of white—and how she had no idea why it was there. Elsa thought of Arendelle, the people, going about their lives, now buried in snow. She thought of Papa, how much she hated when he shouted at her. Her fear turned to anger. Her guilt turned to rage. How dare he accuse her of failing. How dare he blame her for Anna's death when he couldn't find a way to keep her powers in check.
Elsa just wanted him gone. A surge of water reflected off the ice. The wave crashed through the palace, splintering the walls into a million tiny pieces. Elsa struggled against the onslaught, dashed around mercilessly by the water. She tried to find her father. To catch one more glimpse of Papa. But he was gone. The water was gone. Everything… gone. Elsa sat in the snow, sobbing.
"No. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Come back. Come back! Please!"
Papa didn't come back. He never came back. A rumbling shook the mountain above her. Elsa didn't care anymore. Let an avalanche bury her. It didn't matter. It was what she deserved. After everything she'd done, she was surprised she hadn't simply been swallowed by the earth. Dragged into an unfeeling, blissful darkness. The snow slammed into her back, sent her tumbling into rocks and trees. A jagged spire of rock rushed to meet her. Elsa closed her eyes and everything went black.
"Elsa?" Anna's voice was soft, soothing. "Elsa, are you okay?"
"I—" Elsa looked into her sister's sleepy eyes. She was tempted to lie, to let Anna at least have a peaceful night. No. She was going to be better than that. Anna deserved better than that. "No, Anna, I'm not okay."
Elsa could feel her sister's hand trace her tears, gently brushing her cheeks. "You were crying. Shouting for someone to come back."
"Papa," Elsa half sobbed. She felt Anna shiver. In the moonlight she could see a thin layer of frost coating every surface. Small drifts of snow were scattered around the room.
"It's okay," Anna whispered, hugging her sister tight. "It's okay to be weak sometimes. To not be okay. To miss people."
"But I'm the Queen," Elsa protested. "I have to be strong. Strong enough for everyone. Show everyone my strengths, hide my weaknesses."
"I already know your strengths, but your weaknesses… they're what make you a person. A normal person, just like the rest of us. And maybe you don't want to be normal—or do you, with your powers?—but if we had different parents, we'd be normal. You and me. Nothing special. Just a girl with ice powers, and a girl without. Maybe we grew up different. Didn't hide your powers. Then we always built snowmen. Not just in winter, and I…"
Elsa wasn't sure what the next word was, but it sounded suspiciously like a snore. Anna's drooping eyelids confirmed the fact. So much for a midnight pep-talk. But Elsa did feel a little better. Anna was right. She didn't have to be okay all the time. Actually, Elsa considered, she was going to have to come to terms with not being okay quite a lot of the time. Sure, she would feel fine for a while. Hours. Maybe even a day. Then the paperwork, her legs, worrying about Anna. Heirs and succession. Arendelle. The future of the kingdom. All of it weighed heavily on her shoulders. She wished, just for a moment. For a second. She wished she could undo everything. But she realized that would also undo all the good memories too. Undo Anna's happiness. Elsa couldn't bring herself to wish for something like that come true, ever again.
So, instead of wishing for impossible things, Elsa tried to relax, watching her sister sleep. Elsa looked at her sister. Really looked at her, for the first time in… ever, really. Elsa could never remember being this close to anyone. Not even when she was a child. She studied Anna's face, the curve of her cheek, her small nose. Her hilariously—endearingly—terrible bed head. Anna's gently curving chin. Her slender neck, pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. The way her shoulders shifted as she rolled onto her back.
That was when Elsa noticed her sister's nightgown was in complete disarray, having fallen off her shoulder, leaving rather large areas exposed. Elsa wanted to simply slide the strap of the gown back up Anna's arm, but part of her was afraid of disturbing her sister's sleep. A different part of her was quietly comparing how similar they looked, and how different they were. Elsa knew that she had a respectable bust, and that Anna's was somewhat less impressive. Even in the moonlight, her sister's skin had a subtle glow about it, a much brighter, more radiant look than her own pale flesh.
Elsa's hand was halfway to her sister's exposed flesh before she realized what she was doing. Elsa gasped and drew her hand back. What in heaven's name was she thinking? Slowly, she realized how close they had become as sisters. She realized what closeness like that normally signified. She wondered if Anna ever thought like that. After all, this was the closest they'd been in a long time. The things they'd shared… Elsa wondered if they could be called intimate. She remembered the way Anna held her, touched her briefly, when she bathed, when she was toweling off.
Slowly, Elsa realized she had come to crave her sister's touch. Almost as much as she had tried to deny it for the last thirteen years. And because of that, she was confused. Very, very confused. She wanted a family—but she couldn't have one. Didn't this mean she should only have feelings like this for men. What if Anna had been a man. A friend, not family. Or what if Anna was only a friend, not her sister. Did that make thoughts like these alright?
Of course Elsa knew what was supposed to happen. Papa had had 'the talk' with her one embarrassing evening, an evening that seemed so very long ago. But things had been different then. Elsa's interest, her understanding, had been merely intellectual. She hadn't thought that she would ever find someone. She didn't think she deserved anyone—or that anyone was terrible enough to deserve her. On a basic level, she had understood what the talk was about. But only now, in the pale moonlight, lying next to Anna's half naked body and with most unsisterly thoughts crashing into each other in her head, did Elsa understand what the talks had meant. Only now did she understand—at least in part—about the emotions involved.
She wasn't sure confusion was supposed to be in there though. Maybe she'd added that one herself. And still she lay there, wondering: what if Anna was only a friend? A good friend? Or what if it had been a man lying there? Someone who had helped her through her injury over the past few days? Someone she didn't feel awkward around? Elsa didn't have any answers to those questions. They only raised more questions and left her even more confused.
Elsa sighed heavily, rolling over, putting her back to her sister, facing away from temptation. She needed sleep. She needed time. She needed… Elsa didn't know what she really needed. She just knew that she needed it.
"Elsa, wake up," Anna's voice was bursting with excitement. Elsa had no idea why. "C'mon, get up. We'll be late."
"Late for what?" Elsa slowly dragged herself towards consciousness.
"My wedding."
That did it. Elsa was suddenly awake, staring questioningly at her sister while trying to prop herself up on her elbows. "Your wedding?!"
Anna's laughter was priceless, as was the look on Elsa's face. Elsa thought she heard someone's subdued laughter outside the door. The light shining through the window showed it was still early. Very early. Yet Anna was awake, and excited about something. There was a cough from the other side of the door. Elsa turned to her sister, the huge grin slowly spreading across her face. And then Elsa knew.
"If Kristoff doesn't show up in the next five minutes," she muttered darkly. "He's going to be a widower."
Ice began to frost the windows, and the room chilled. Spikes of ice grew towards the bed.
"Elsa," it came as a breathless whisper. Elsa had heard it only once before—at the coronation ball. Her heart fell.
Elsa let the magic ebb, causing the ice to vanish. Anna shivered.
"Anna…?"
Anna's arm reached out to embrace her sister, dragging her under the covers. "When you use your magic like that. When it's angry… you're angry… it's… well, you're scary sometimes."
"I didn't mean to scare you like that Anna. I just wanted to give you a little fright."
"More than a little, you stinker," Anna thumped her sister on the chest. "You honestly think I'd marry Kristoff without asking you first—without taking the time to get to know him properly? Actually he's a really sweet guy. Strong too. Smells like reindeer, but he tastes like… umm, he tastes good?"
"I have no desire to know how you know that," Elsa made her wishes quite clear.
"Not even a little?" Anna teased running a hand through Elsa's unbraided her. The platinum blonde Queen of Arendelle shied away from the touch. Anna was surprised enough to let her hand fall away empty. That was also when she noticed Elsa staring at her chest—in kind of the same way Kristoff pretended not to when he could get away with it. "Elsa? Is everything okay?"
"I–It's fine Anna. I don't want to talk about it."
"You don't want to talk now?" Anna asked, dragging herself out of bed, and helping her sister into her chair. "Or you just don't want to talk?"
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Just… not with you…"
"But we've shared so much now. I thought you were past shutting me out!" anger crept into Anna's voice.
"I cant," Elsa repeated flatly.
"Why?" Anna pressed, helping Elsa undress herself in the bathroom.
"I can't!" the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Anna shivered.
"Okay…" Anna's expression softened. She could tell Elsa needed more time. It had taken her a long time to ask about their parents. This was probably something similarly painful. Anna wondered if it was about that night—when she was five and Elsa was eight. They'd talked about it. Elsa had apologized for it, but it it always seemed to show up again. She just needs time, Anna told herself. "But Elsa, please, don't shut me out. I want to help."
"I know you do. And you are. You're helping more than you know. Just being there—and that's just it. You're always there. I keep feeling like I'm holding you back from something," it wasn't a lie. Not really. Elsa really did feel that way sometimes. And anyway, how could she possibly tell Anna how she truly felt. The whole situation was unbearably awkward. "If you want to get back to sleep, I can always call for Gerda."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous Elsa. You're just going to have to get over your embarrassment at needing help with this. Like it wasn't going to happen eventually."
"What?!" Elsa was more shocked than angry.
"Well, we're both gonna get old one day—I mean, like, a long time from now. Years even"—Anna stuck out her tongue—"but we'll get old. We'll need help doing things. Probably forget your name first. Then mine. But I'll remember what I had for breakfast six days ago because I'll be seeing it again."
"Anna!" Elsa was laughing despite the awkwardness she suddenly felt around her sister. "That's disgusting. And most unladylike."
"What, old people aren't allowed to poop?"
Elsa held her head in her hands. Trust Anna to be so blunt. So terribly, terribly—hilariously—blunt. Elsa really didn't have a reply to that. Mostly because she was still mortified to hear her sister talk like that. To talk about such things. Even in private. Even, Elsa realized, in the appropriate setting. She was also suddenly reminded of Anna's persistence when it came to getting things she wanted.
"Elsa, about this morning," she started tentatively. "I get it. It's something you don't want to talk about. Like my arm. I mean, how I didn't want to talk about that. But, can you at least tell me why?"
"I—" Elsa started, but cut herself off. "I'm sorry Anna. I can't. It's… it's really awkward."
"Is it that whole family and succession thing where having a baby makes me Queen?"
"Well, sort of," Elsa replied. It was the truth, to some degree. At this point Anna was washing up, and helping Elsa into her day clothes. Which were disturbingly all black.
"You look like you're going to a fune—oh," and Anna understood. Recalled the conversation they'd had the previous morning. Was this the source of all the awkwardness?
"Wear whatever you want," Elsa spoke casually to her sister. Too casually. "You've already done this."
"You're not getting out of it that easily. We're both going. After breakfast. And I have my own mourning dress to wear."
Elsa could see the tears gathering at the corners of Anna's eyes. Felt the unshed tears weighing her down. She thought she'd grieved, accepted the loss in her own private prison. All she'd done was push it out of her mind. Lock it deep within her heart. She hadn't wanted to hurt. She'd never felt a hurt so deep. Not until she had sung the lullaby with Anna did she realize what she really needed to do. She also realized that meant she would have to relive all that pain. All the heartache. But instead of locking up it, this time, somehow, she would have to let it go.
"Hey Elsa?" Anna asked innocently. "Would you like to braid my hair. It's kinda… umm… impossible to do with just one hand."
They were back in Anna's room. Elsa hesitated. It meant she would be touching her sister. Would her touch be different now? Would Anna notice? Could she take that risk?
"Sure. You didn't bother brushing it, did you?"
"Hey, I totally—" Elsa's stare cut off Anna's protest as the red haired sister sat in front of Elsa's wheelchair. She wordlessly handed Elsa her brush.
If she noticed any difference in the way Elsa held her hair, touched her head, or anything else, she made no comment about it. Instead, she mock-whined.
"You know, I kind of miss the white. It felt special."
Elsa reached forward to hug her sister, wrapping both arms around her from behind. It was a difficult posture to hold, sitting in the chair. She couldn't help that when her hand slipped it ended up where it did. Or that she was saying, at the time: "You don't need the white hair. You're special to me."
Anna made no attempt to move her sister's hand. She just turned around and wrapped her own arm around Elsa's shoulders. "You're special to me too. Now, breakfast!"
And so, a grand breakfast was had. Fruits, cereals, toast, a sneaky piece of chocolate. An even sneakier sip of wine with the grape juice. Elsa envied the way her sister could truly enjoy—even relish—such moments. She also knew such envy was not fair on her part. Anna had suffered at least as much as she had, although her torment through the years had been of a less physical kind, it didn't make it any less valid. It was just—Elsa didn't know what it was. Possibly the fact that Anna was more open, showed her pain, let others help her deal with it.
The morning faded, and Elsa knew it was her fault. Literally. Clouds were obscuring the sun as she wheeled herself solemnly onwards, a few paces behind Anna. She was trying to keep her powers in check. That meant suppressing her emotions—something Elsa was trying emphatically not to do these days. She had found a kind of compromise. That was the reason it was merely overcast instead of howling a gale with a blizzard bearing down on Arendelle. That compromise was Elsa telling herself it was okay to feel, but that what she felt had to be happy. Given where they were heading though, happy was not easy to come up with.
Anna informed her they were nearly there. Snow began drifting gently from the clouds overhead. Small flakes, floating and drifting as if they were as forlorn as Elsa. And maybe, Elsa thought, maybe they are. It's my snow after all. She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. The snow abated. A little. She didn't actually know how far her powers reached right now. She hoped it wasn't as far as when she'd run away.
Elsa could tell they were there even before Anna stopped. The standing stones were hard to miss. Two stones, rough hewn from the rocks of the mountains. Runes—names, carved on each. King… Queen… Elsa couldn't bring herself to read their names. To her they had always been Mama and Papa. They always would be. Not matter how old she got. No matter how old they might have gotten.
Elsa approached her mother's grave first. She knew it wasn't really a grave. Just a headstone. Her body was one with the sea now. But the stone was important. Symbolic. It anchored her spirit to home. If her spirit might ever return. Elsa found herself hoping it would. Just to see how much of a fine young lady Anna had become. Let her ignore the hurt, the pain Hans had inflicted on her daughters. Let her spirit know only the good that was left in them.
Anna placed the flower for Mama at the base of the stone. It was a Gentiana bloom—little more than a bud, the blue of its petals just starting to show. She missed what Anna was whispering, but caught the tears falling silently down her sister's face. It was clear both sisters knew the significance of the closed bloom. It was essentially the same thing Elsa had just hoped for, but expressed with much greater elegance. What the closed Gentiana bloom meant was this: Sweet be thy dreams.
Snow began to dust the gravestones, drifts building up against the base of each. Elsa took deep, shaky breaths. She couldn't calm herself down. If she couldn't get herself under control. If her morose feelings were allowed to continue too long—I'm still a danger, Elsa told herself. I have to keep it under control. But then how do I let go? How do I acknowledge the pain without it consuming me?
She thought she should be crying, but all Elsa felt was empty. There was grief, bereavement—then there was the numbness she was feeling, the snowfall slowing, seeming to hang in the air for longer and longer. She didn't know what to do, so she just talked.
"Mama, I really miss you. I know I think about Papa more, but you were important. Always. And you were there for Anna. I loved you for that too. I know you loved us both very much. Even if you had to go away, you still loved us. You still do. I hope. I guess you know everything that happened, but… well, I got through the coronation okay, but at the ball Anna stole my glove. She kept pushing me and pushing me, and I used my magic. I didn't mean to. It happened. So I had to run away.
"I had to. I left for the mountains. Everyone would be safe from me if I ran all the way up there, right? But they weren't. Nobody was. I covered all of Arendelle in winter. It must have been so cold. But I didn't know. I made an ice palace. I used my powers, and I was happy. Really, truly, happy. But then Anna came along. She told me what I'd done. She was just trying to help and… and…"
Elsa dragged herself out of the wheelchair, snow piling up around her, and pulled herself closer to Mama's gravestone. She wrapped her arms around it, the snow starting to fall lazily through the air again.
"I froze her heart Mama. I froze her heart! Then I slammed the doors in her face. Again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. But Kristoff… he found her. Saved her after what I'd done to her. Then the duke's men attacked me. They tried to kill me. I used my magic again. I had to. They forced me. I had to protect myself. Then there was Hans. He threw me in that cell—the special one. But I broke out. I broke out. It wasn't strong enough.
"Then he told me Anna was dead because of me. I froze her heart. I heard his sword. I knew what he wanted to do. And… and… and…" silent tears coursed down Elsa's face as she hugged her mother's gravestone. "I gave up. Like that. My life wasn't worth anything if Anna was dead. But she wasn't dead. I heard her scream. I felt something like fire down my back. Now… now my legs don't work. Anna lost her arm. But we have each other.
"That was what you always said right. 'As long as we have each other'?"
Elsa felt a warm hand placed against her shoulder, she looked up to see Anna smiling down at her through her own tears. The feisty red haired princess looked—proud, there was no other way Elsa could describe that look. But not proud of herself, Elsa understood. Anna was proud of her sister. The red haired princess patted her sister's shoulder, then stepped away again. There was one more thing Elsa had to do.
Elsa looked longingly at the stone, imagined their mother's face. Her soft smile and warm eyes. It was hardest thing to do. But what she had to say next—what she had to tell herself to accept—made that act of imagination even harder and more melancholy. The snowflakes hung motionless in the still air as Elsa saw her mother's face just in front of the gravestone. There was just one thing left to do now. Her tears had stopped, but Elsa's heart felt heavier than ever.
"Goodbye, Mom. I'll miss you."
This time there was no hand on her shoulder. Elsa slowly dragged herself back to her chair. Anna was sitting in the snow, knees drawn up to her chest, her arm wrapped around them. Snow dusted her hair and shoulders. Elsa could see the tears still in her sister's eyes. Could see the pain she was just barely holding back. Elsa had never realized just how much the death of their parents had put her sister though. She had been trapped in her own private world of misery and despair. She had forgotten other people had feelings—had feelings as deep and powerful as her own.
Elsa reached out to embrace her sister and was shocked to feel Anna's arm pushing her away. Anna, the sister who for so long had wanted nothing more than a little human contact from her best friend. The sister who insisted that all of things Elsa had done to her were accidental. The sister whose bed she had shared these past few nights. The same sister was pushing her away. Elsa wondered if this was how Anna had felt when she'd first been shut out of Elsa's room.
"No," Anna spoke softly, sobbing. "You can go. I'm breaking my promise. I never want to see you hurt like that. It's not fair! I can't help you!"
"What makes you so sure?" Elsa asked cryptically, placing a hand on her sister's shoulder. Anna's hand came up instinctively to grab it. "What if just being here helps me?"
"How?"
"If I was on my own, do you think I could have said that. Do you think I could have stayed long enough to say even half of it?"
"Maybe?"
"It does help Anna, you being here. And I know it hurts you to see my pain, but I… I have to feel this pain. I have to experience the grief properly, or it's going to weigh me down forever. I can't begin to heal if I don't know what was hurting me all this time."
"Here," Anna rummaged in her pocket for something. It was a stone. Small. Rough. Three runes had been painstakingly carved on it. It looked painstaking. Elsa could tell her sister's craftsmanship anywhere.
"I can't," Elsa gently folded her sister's fingers back around the stone.
"Should," Anna sobbed. "You were his favourite."
"I can't," Elsa repeated, more emphatically. "Not alone."
Anna smiled through her tears, allowing Elsa to help her stand. "Together."
The sisters approached their father's gravestone. Elsa leaned forward and used a touch of her power to clear the snow. Anna knelt down and placed the stone, runes facing upward. She placed it next to another pair of stones, their runes slowly worn away by the intervening years. Without a word, Elsa pulled herself from her chair and sat stiffly on the ground, rearranging her legs into something resembling a cross-legged sitting position, forming a backrest of ice to keep herself upright. Hands in her lap, and with Anna sitting beside her, Elsa began to talk.
"It's… it's good to see you again Papa. I still think about you. I miss you. I wish I knew what you know. Being the Queen is hard. Really hard. I wasn't ready for all this. I never was. I'm still struggling Papa. You always made it look so easy, but I know it wasn't. You were king, and Arendelle your kingdom. You would do anything to protect it. Even if it meant protecting it from me. I know you had to send everyone away because of me. I know how much it must have hurt you to do that.
"You were a good man, Papa. You never wanted me to hide like I did. You just wanted me to be safe. To keep my magic safe. I tried to. I really did, but secrets like that… I kept it bottled up for so long it grew and grew and grew. And finally, it broke the bottle I was keeping it in. At the ball. After Anna asked to marry Hans. My glove… she didn't mean to. I just wanted to get away. I just wanted to be alone. Again. That's when it broke. Now everyone knows—but they don't hate me. Not all of them.
"But I ran away. Far into the mountains. I could be a Queen of my own little kingdom up there. Anna would be Queen of Arendelle. She would be a nice queen. A good queen. Not like me. But she followed me. Always. She found me. Found my palace of ice. Told me what I'd done to my kingdom—my real kingdom, Arendelle. I was scared, stressed, angry. I ran away so everyone would be safe! Then Anna comes chasing me, and…
"Do you remember that night Papa, when I was eight? The first time. We rode all night to get to the trolls. You remember what they said? 'The heart is not so easily changed.' That's what they said. That's what I did because I was scared and angry. It was an accident, but I froze Anna's heart"—Elsa felt her sister gently take her arm, twine their fingers together and squeeze—"but she still loves me. She always did. She saved my life Papa. She was the brave one. Even with just one arm she's bolder and braver than me. Than I ever was.
"She's too good for me Papa. After everything I've done, after everything I said—she still loves me. I don't deserve such a wonderful sister. She shouldn't be burdened with someone like—oww, Anna!—someone like me. She shouldn't have been hurt. She should be free, free to live how she wants, not having to take care of me. Hans took my legs from me. His sword across my back. They don't work anymore. And Anna's arm… before she froze… before she saved my life… I just want you to know something Papa.
"You helped raise an amazing young woman. Brave, bold, fearless, open, full of wonder, full of warmth. Full of love. Then there's me. But I'm not your fault. And I'm trying to change. To be better. To look for help. To accept help from others. That's why I'm here. Anna's here too, she promised me. She'd stop me if I tried to run away. But I don't feel like running anymore Papa. Running away just made me tired. And sad. And alone. And now I know it was never the answer. Anna was the answer. She showed me. You don't run from your fears. You hold your ground. You turn and face them. Head on. You weather the storm. No matter how much it hurts, you hold your ground in the face of your fears. Always."
Her speech finished, Elsa drew in a deep, calming breath. It actually felt calming. Another breath. She heard something in the still air. A quiet sobbing. Her right hand was twined with Anna's left. It was Anna, crying softly into the snow.
"That was…" Anna sniffled before starting again. "That was beautiful Elsa."
Elsa leaned over, toppled sideways, reaching out to hug her sister. Anna's braids fell across the top of view. Her smile was worth it. Lying there in the snow, Elsa discovered part of herself she hadn't known about before. A part of her heart full of kindness and mischief. A part of her that would do anything to see Anna smile. Because her sister was worth it. Wordlessly, Anna helped Elsa upright, sitting against the ice again. Elsa placed her hands in her lap, took a minute to compose herself.
She took a deep breath.
Another.
She had one last thing to say. She had to mean it. It weighed heavily in her heart, but she knew that once she said it, accepted it, that weight would ease. She felt Anna shuffle closer, drape her arm lazily over her shoulders. She felt Anna lean against her shoulder. The closeness didn't feel awkward this time. It felt normal. Just two sisters, helping each other through their grief.
"I never blamed you," Elsa spoke to the gravestone, imagining her father's face. It was harder to see than her mother's. More than his face, Elsa remembered her father's bearing, his poise, the clothes that made the man. The one prized possession he had that he'd taken to the grave with him. A gold cross, suspended on a thick red ribbon. Before he was king, he had served Arendelle. Had served with distinction. That medal was proof. The Star of Arendelle, for outstanding gallantry in defense of the realm. That was what Elsa remembered most. That was also, probably, where Anna got her courage from. From Papa. Elsa wished she had more of her own to call upon.
"What happened…" Elsa tried again. "It wasn't your fault Papa. I loved you, even if I couldn't show it. I hated not being able to touch you, or mom. I hated being afraid of hurting people. But I loved you. I always did. I always have. I always will. No matter what happens, I still love you. Even if… even if"—Elsa took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting to hold back the tears until she had finished speaking—"even if I have to say goodbye."
A weight felt like it was lifting inside Elsa's heart. A weight that had borne her down for so long. And as it lifted, so did the snow. As Anna stroked her hair, Elsa watched as the clouds overhead slowly broke apart. The sun began to shine again, warm and brilliant against the fallen snow.
AN: I've created a monster. This is my largest chapter yet. Possibly ever. As always, comments and reviews are most welcome. Also, if anyone has any Fanart they want to show off, I'm still looking for a good cover for this story.