One day, back when she was no taller than her desk chair, Anna had run from her writing professor. It was a normal circumstance that the older man had grown accustomed to and her disappearances were, more often than not, accompanied with minor theft. His book. His quills. His engraved, floral-themed mustache comb. He'd usually have to search a while before he'd figure out what was missing- sometimes, he couldn't even tell she'd taken anything until their next lesson, when she would present it like a trophy.
This specific time only took him moments to register what the thieving little Anna had run off with.
Winter hadn't ended and wouldn't for a few more weeks, but this particular week in February had been a surprising exception. People were out and about. Even bugs brought themselves to the surface. Anna sat in her open field of tall yellowed grass, damp from melted snow. The sun shone bright on her face and the through the stolen spectacles.
Footsteps rang somewhere on her left. She turned to see Elsa in the distance, running through the meadow toward her. Even though they would usually meet after their lessons, Elsa was much earlier than expected. Anna briefly wondered in amusement if her sister had fled her lessons as well. Then she remembered who her sister was and figured that the nerd probably finished her lesson early. She went back to the item in her hands.
Elsa finally caught sight of her small sister in the long grass and waved with a loud "hey" and ran faster. Anna tilted the spectacles around to catch the sun's bright rays. And tilted. The rays coming through the glasses weren't lining up with themselves. She glared and frowned, frustrated. This was supposed to work by now. Then she found what she was looking for- a concentrated spot of sun on a blade of grass. Elsa, out of breath, stumbled within talking distance.
"Hey," she managed, panting.
"Hi." Anna was focused.
Elsa stood beside Anna. She pointed. "Are those your professor's spectacles?"
"Yeah." Too focused.
"What are you-" "Yeah!" Anna cut Elsa off with an abrupt elated shout. She completed her mission of burning a hole in the grass and with that, she squinted up at her sister, "Hi."
"...H-Hello." Elsa had greeted her three times by this point, this time with caution now that Anna had an apparent weapon in her grasp. "What, um, what are you doing, exactly?"
"Making fire." Anna said calmly. "I read somethin' like this in a book and thought I'd give it a whirl," continued as if it were a normal thing to talk about.
Before Elsa could ask about what kind of arson-filled books Anna could possibly be reading, the smaller girl let out a shriek, fueled with fear as the fields echoed. "Eeeeew!"
Anna jumped to a standing position, her eyes wide and one finger pointed at the intrusion; slowly wriggling on the slightly burnt blade of grass was a bulbous, chartreuse caterpillar. Elsa's arm came up to her mouth in an effort to keep herself from laughing, but before even so much as a chortle could escape she saw her sister hold the glasses and attempt to shine sunlight through the lenses again, this time on the bug.
"Don't burn it!"
Elsa knocked the item out of Anna's hands, who then looked up with a bewildered face.
"But it's ugly. And yucky. Why are you, why?"
"Anna, do you know what a caterpillar is?"
"Yeah." she crossed her arms. She pouted. She looked away. "No."
"They're little insects that don't bother anyone. They crawl around and eat grass. One day they make a cocoon around themselves and hide for a long time. Eventually they break free and come out as butterflies. It may be ugly now but it'll become beautiful soon. Though some caterpillars take a long time to become butterflies, they all do in the end." She regarded the cool air around her, feeling as though she'd said something inspirational and given her little sister some advice about life.
"Wow." Anna slowly nodded, seemingly intrigued. "Okay. You like squishy bugs."
Elsa whipped her head in Anna's direction. "Okay, and you're scared of squishy bugs," her eyebrows raised and she held a tight-lipped half smile.
Anna let out a very loud, very theatrical gasp. "I'm-" she guffawed and sputtered, "I'm not scared of bugs!"
"Alright, alright," Elsa held her hands out defensively, "you aren't scared." She held her hands behind her. "I only meant to say that anyone who could pick one of those up would be very, very brave." She coyly walked backwards and then waved goodbye with a sprint, mentioning dinner in a shout.
"I'm brave. Pfft, I'm so super brave" She whispered and frowned at Elsa's back. She frowned at the bug. The bug joyfully wiggled. She groaned at its happiness. "You just had to be gross, didn't you?"
Anna steeled herself, Alright, I gotta do this. I'm not scared. At all. I am brave! She screeched and forced herself to yank with all her might at the stalk of grass that the caterpillar was so peacefully feasting upon. She'd pulled so hard that the momentum nearly launched the caterpillar, instead leaving it to dangle precariously at the edge of the blade of grass. Anna swore she heard it scream for help at the top of its yucky bug lungs.
It swung by the few feet and toes that held onto the leaf of grass for a moment, then plummeted. Anna's body instinctively shot her arm forward and there the bug plopped, right into her cupped hand.
She screamed, of course, and tugged her skirt in front of her as a makeshift pocket to throw the offending insect into.
"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, eeeew!" Anna rubbed her free hand on the ground and on her blouse, disgusted that she'd touched a bug. That feeling of disgust quickly turned to delight at the fact that she'd picked up a caterpillar! She raced back to the castle and spent the whole time crafting ideas on how to cleverly present it to Elsa.
After dinner, the girls went back to their shared room and Anna giggled conspiratorially the whole way. When they arrived, Elsa found a bowl on her bed and a note under the bowl. The bowl had one bravely caught caterpillar and the note had "enjoy this yucky bug" and a crudely drawn frowny face.
And that was the very first caterpillar Elsa had received from Anna. Being so close to Valentine's Day, it became an instant tradition. Even during the isolation, Anna would write a Valentine's note and collect a gross caterpillar and shove them both under that dreaded door. Then it was forgone one year and the next and forgotten for a long time after that, until-
"I did what for you?"
"You'd go way out of your comfort zone just to try to prove to me that you weren't afraid of bugs."
"I didn't have to prove that. I'm not afraid of bugs." Anna replied unconvincingly. Elsa quirked an eyebrow at her. They'd been walking side by side in the hall when they passed a window that oversaw a concealed indoor courtyard, lush with greenery opposing the snowy nature outside. Green mossy trees grew green baby leaves housed green caterpillar cocoons. "Yuck," Anna uttered and shuddered when they walked by not even a minute ago.
"Disregarding that bold lie," Elsa noted with her head, "I'd always thought it was really nice of you to do that, to be that brave, for me. Truly."
"Really?" Out of her quirked lips, Anna's tone dripped with doubt. "That's what qualifies as brave to you? Even after all those times that I was brace during playtime? Remember when I so bravely saved you from imaginary bears, imaginary dragons, and my very real, very potent dirt cookies?"
Elsa rolled her eyes. "Yes, somehow it tops all of those. I recall, you'd stick a caterpillar under the door and I'd hear you squeal in fear when it started crawling around, but you managed the courage to keep it up every Valentine's Day for a few years straight."
"Ooh," Anna put her hand on Elsa's shoulder, "Speaking of it, Valentine's Day's in a few days. What should we do? Host a gala? Sail somewhere?" Anna gazed at Elsa, momentarily wonderstruck with possibilities, the previous conversation set aside.
"Or, and hear me out," Elsa took a deep breath, "we could stay here and do nothing," she spoke unhurriedly, emphasizing each word. Instead of trying to plan a whole gala in three days, she added in her head.
"Nothing nothing?" She blinked rapidly and tilted her head skeptically. Do-nothing days made Elsa fidgety and she wasn't usually this quick to suggest one.
"Well, except enjoy ourselves, our own company."
Anna smiled. "You mean that?"
"Yes, Anna. Yes I do." A pause. "Maybe we can have a light picnic where you don't shape and serve food right out of the ground."
Anna grinned at the floor and shook her head lightly, letting a faint whisper escape; "always with the snark, you."
Their picnic ran a little long and late that chilly February evening and neither of them really noticed, busy sitting and chatting and laughing, until the cover of their tree no longer shielded their eyes from the sun floating just above the horizon.
"Ooh, hey, look at that," Anna jerked her head, "the sun is setting."
Elsa raised a hand over her eyes. "It looks very nice."
The pristine piles of snow shimmered with pinks reflected from the sky. Though it hadn't snowed since that morning, the air still held that sort of silence that comes with snowfall.
"Yep. Okay." Anna uncrossed her legs and stood, offering her hands to Elsa. "We gotta go."
"We- Wait, what? That was sudden. Alright." Elsa accepted Anna's hands and she was pulled up.
They raced back to the castle grounds, come on, come on! Flew up the stairs, where are we going, anyway? Sprinted down the hall, you'll see if you get your butt in gear! Alternating between wheezing and cracking up, they made it to their bedroom door.
Anna looked to the door, to the knob, then to her sister. "Go on, you open it." Elsa, hesitant, prepared herself for whatever lay ahead.
The door creaked open.
The curtains were drawn back, illuminating the room with yellows and pinks and reds from the sunset. The room, bright and beautiful as it was, was overshadowed by the presence of a few dozen caterpillars. Some squirmed. Some were in opaque cocoons. A quiet couple were near the end of metamorphosis and shook in their clear cocoons. Elsa's eyes couldn't widen enough to take it all in.
"This is where I was all afternoon. I needed help from some maids and it took a lot of effort to convince them that I wasn't trying to pull a prank on you, but eventually- oof-" Elsa enveloped her in a sudden and tight hug. A honeyed spotlight shone on them through the glass windows.
Anna gradually brought her arms around Elsa's back and they held each other in a cozy embrace.
"Thank you. This is so, so... I'm speechless..." Anna tilted her head toward Elsa's, as much as she could. "... A good speechless, of course. I can't believe you went through all this trouble."
"I'm not above making a fool out of myself when it comes to you. Happy Valentine's Day."
If at all possible, Elsa tightened the hug even more.
A butterfly finally wriggled its way to freedom from its transparent cocoon and fluttered about the room on its brand new set of wings.
She hummed, rubbed a circle on Anna's back.
"Anna?"
"Yes?" Their upper bodies leaned out of the hug, arms still connected at their backs. They held eye contact.
"While this is very nice, sincerely, truly nice, I don't know how we're supposed to go to bed." Sheepish smile. "Will you help me take all these bugs back outside?"
A grimace. "Yeah, I wasn't really sure how this part was gonna go, really. But, uh, according to someone, I'm still afraid of bugs, so-"
Elsa clunked their foreheads together in exasperation.
When a bug-free order was restored, after they said their gentle good nights and tucked themselves in, Anna'd been given the surprise of a caterpillar under her side of the sheets and screamed accordingly. A laugh, a whack, and many, many cuddles.
Thank you for reading!