Chapter 13
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Arendelle had changed and the entire world had noticed. Queen Elsa had changed. In the coming weeks following Queen Elsa's decision to cut her hair scandalously short, something had happened to their beloved queen. No one had a clue what had happened though, but there had been a personality shift from the young queen so sudden that it took the entire world by surprise. Her dealings became ruthless, her actions cruel and aggressive. There was no compromise with domestic opponents. There were no negotiations with foreign powers. Queen Elsa got her way no matter what and she was not above using her powers to achieve her goals. It didn't take long for the world powers to realize that their best option was to simply leave her and her sphere of influence alone. The northern lands were considered the Snow Queen's territory from then on.
At home, the people were more attentive of another change within the royal family. Princess Anna had changed as well. Her bright outlook and animated personality had waned then disappeared almost overnight. She rarely left the castle. In fact she was almost never seen by the general public. People speculated and even questioned (and accused) her former boyfriend, but nothing came about it. Still, it was generally accepted that something had happened to the princess to cause such a drastic reversal with their new queen.
Anna spent her days alone and they dragged on miserably. She wasn't allowed outside the castle walls nor have contact with anyone outside the castle's small staff. Her days consisted of reading and dreaming of a better life. She usually ended up crying herself to sleep at the end of her days.
Unfortunately, Anna was far from alone. With the exception of a few hours a day, Anna spent almost every moment with her. That woman who had stolen everything from her. Every day she was tormented by her, physically and emotionally. Worse was her own torment though. Every day she awoke and blamed herself for what happened to Elsa. She blamed herself again when they went to bed. When Elle forced herself on Anna at night, she only blamed herself more.
But the absolute worst was having to address the queen. Even speaking the words 'Elsa' to that devil made Anna break down. She was forbidden to ever call her 'Elle'. Anna had only made that mistake once.
When they were in public, that is to say the few staff members, councilors, or dignitaries who were permitted to see Anna, Elle treated Anna like a trophy wife. She made it obvious that Anna was hers without explicitly making it obvious they were in a relationship. Still it made those around them uncomfortable and Ella enjoyed the way they squirmed. Anna played her part by being as distant yet presentable as possible. She had grown tired of their sympathetic and sorrowful looks. She grew to hate them as much as Elle and her own self.
In private, Elle treated Anna like her lover...a lover that she would tease, belittle, and insult. Anna showed absolutely no affection back, but that never deterred Elle. In fact it seemed to spur her on. Anna made every effort to show that she didn't love Elle back, but Elle never seemed to care. Not when she found Anna sobbing during the day, not when Anna cried herself to sleep, and not even when Anna would lay limp while Elle was between her legs. She'd be calling Anna a useless spare one moment and coddling her and telling her that they were going to be together forever the next.
Despite it all, the princess still had a glimmer of hope left. After all, Elle had to have come from somewhere.
Anna followed her sister out of the council chambers sluggishly and without purpose. They had just met with representatives from the Duchy of Snoob, not that Anna had cared who they were or why they were there. Being their first meeting, the Queen had of course showed off her most precious possession which was the only reason why Anna had been there in the first place. It was a humiliating affair for Anna. She had no purpose of being there and everyone in the room knew it. Her sister acted as if she wasn't even there, a reminder to everyone that Anna was just the queen's play thing and nothing more. Anna tried shutting the conversations out, imagining being in the same situation, but with her real sister. They'd probably be making fun of the Duchy's name. It made Anna smile or at least it made her want to smile.
Queen Elsa stopped dead in her tracks once the pair had passed through the threshold of her office. Anna, distant as always, nearly ran into her from behind. Now that the initial negotiations had been through and they broke for their first break, Anna's presence had even less of a purpose. The dignitaries already squirmed and knew the princess was off limits. Anna had done her job.
"Anna, dear, the negotiations will resume at the top of the hour, however I don't need you anymore." The Queen continued walking into her office, leaving Anna at the door with unspoken instructions.
Anna turned around to leave without showing a reaction. She was very much relived it was finally over, however knowing it never really was over suppressed any feelings of happiness. Still, she was happy to get a few hours alone.
"I will see you at dinner, my love," the queen said as Anna stepped out. It was an order.
Anna slammed the door shut behind her and headed off towards the library.
Anna sighed to herself and sank deeper into her armchair. Her recent stack of books had proved useless, much like every other book that the royal family owned. After two weeks of sobbing and sulking following Elsa's disappearance, Anna had finally decided to start looking for answers. Months later, she was finally convinced that she had combed the entire castle and found nothing. Elle had to have known what she had been up to. She had no reason to stop her if there was nothing to find, Anna figured.
She had had exactly one break during her search. She had found a book written in runes among her father's things. Within its pages she had found a map leading to the trolls and a drawing of a man using what appeared to be wintry magic. Anna had thought she had found the jackpot, but after finally translating the pages, she had discovered it only told her what she already knew. It said nothing about Elsa's powers or why she had them and only dealt with the effects they had when used on other people, such as what happened to her frozen heart. Worse was that there had definitely been more to it, but the book was so old and so many pages had been lost. It took a week to finally get over the depression caused knowing that all her answers could've been within her grasp had they not been lost in time. She went back to combing the castle once she had gotten over herself.
Anna brought up the map in her head. She was afraid of Elle finding it so she had hid it, but not before first making sure the image was burned in her mind forever.
"There are no answers here," Anna declared to herself out loud.
She knew what she had to do. There were no answers in the castle, but she knew where there were some out there. It was so risky and if Elle caught her...but Anna had to do it. There was just no other way.
She pulled out another image, this time an actual physical image. It was a drawing of her sister. Her real sister, the real Elsa. She ran her fingertips over the piece of parchment. She had stuck it in her dress before the earlier meeting with the Snoob people kind of as a good luck charm. It gave her strength.
"Elsa, I miss you so much." Tears welled up in her eyes.
She clenched the drawing to her chest. "I will save you. I will find out how to fix this."
She didn't know what Elle would do to her if she were to get caught, but she had to do it for Elsa.
It was a quiet night as the pair laid in bed. Elle snuggled in next to Anna, satisfied with being able to take advantage of her sister once again. Anna watched her fall asleep, listening to her faux-sister's soft breathing. The rhythmic sound filled Anna with so many different emotions as it did every night.
It would be so easy...to just kill her in her sleep. She's so vulnerable.
It was a lie that Anna liked to tell herself, to give herself some kind of sense of control. The truth was that Elle wasn't ever safer than when she slept. Anna couldn't touch her, not when she reminded her of Elsa in every way.
In the quiet moonlight of the royal bedroom, the monster that tormented Anna on a daily basis turned into a sleeping beauty. She looked like Elsa, slept like Elsa, and sounded like Elsa. Anna had lost count of the times she had awoken in the middle of the night only to have her tired or hysterical mind trick her into thinking her sister was actually back. No moment was more torturous than those.
Besides, killing Elle was out of the question. If she killed Elle, she would kill Elsa too. The fear that one of Elle's growing number of enemies would finally get to the queen gnawed at Anna, adding to the list of despair and eroding her small glimmer of hope that she would ever see Elsa again.
There's always the trolls.
Anna had meant to start planning to sneak out to the see the trolls three weeks earlier, after declaring the castle void of answers and the day the representatives from Snoob first came. She had chickened out when a new fear got in the way.
Would Elsa even forgive me?
It came up every time Anna even thought about making a move against Elle. Of course Elle had spent countless hours convincing Anna that Elsa would never forgive her, up until the point that she ordered the past to never be brought up again in an attempt to erase the real Elsa from reality, past and present. But Anna had never believed her, refused to listen to her every time. Now months later, the idea paralyzed Anna.
Her grip on the edge of her comforter tightened. Elle had shifted in her sleep. She faced Anna, her eyes fluttering open.
"Hey," she smiled.
Anna looked at her, but didn't answer. Elle still smiled at her. "What're you thinking about?"
Anna rolled over in response.
"I hope you're not still thinking about her," Elle spat, her tone switching from sweet and caring to malice without skipping a beat but Anna was more surprised that Elle had broken the taboo topic though.
"She's gone, Anna, and she's never coming back." Anna screwed her eyes shut tightly and held back tears.
Just like that, Elle switched gears again. "But don't worry, we have each other now," she continued as if nothing had happened.
Anna ended up crying herself to sleep again while Queen Elsa slept comfortably and smugly by her side. She slept with dreams of planning her move, but when she awoke the next morning, it remained nothing more than a dream.
An endless void of nothingness. That was the best way she could describe it. Time seemed to pass by while at the same time seemed to stand still. Time probably didn't exist here. Sometimes she thought it did. Sometimes she forgot what time was.
It felt like floating in a sea of darkness. It felt like nothing too. She wasn't sure how to feel or what it was. She wasn't sure if she was even real or not.
What even is real?
No, she could actually feel something, but she couldn't recall what it was.
Pain? Yes, that's what it was.
The pain always returned. Pain and...
Despair.
Something caused her great pain and despair, but she hardly remembered what. It was something neither here nor there, but somewhere.
It was someone else's suffering. It itself was cause for her own suffering, but she rarely remembered why she suffered. Sometimes she got close to figuring it out, she thought. It had to be growing stronger. Her mind was easier distracted by the nothingness, the never ending darkness.
It drove her mad. Maybe she was already mad to begin with though.
One thing was certain though, this was her hell and there was no escape.
A/N: Thanks to my beta readers, Mig and Rd.
Unfortunately this fic will be going on a sort of hiatus following this chapter. I'll be going away for a few weeks as will one of my beta readers. I might be able to get a chapter out in the next month, but I can't promise anything until the end of August at least. Anyone who followed Blizzards in Arendelle might remember this happening last year.
Anyway, thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any questions, comments, or concerns.