Note: So fuck technology. Microsoft did that thing where it turned my entire document into asterisks and I had to rewrite it. It actually worked out pretty okay because it was basically like editing it and trimming it and I made a change at the end. Oops. Enjoy. Also I apologize for any surplus of typos in here but I kinda had a flare up of dyslexia problems and couldn't really concentrate too much on reading it thoroughly.

Anna couldn't get warm. It was the magic she knew, but a large part of her wondered if part of it was in her own head, or perhaps in her own heart. She'd felt cold like this for a long time in her life. It felt like Elsa shutting her out, like Hans rejecting her, like watching Kristoff walk away.

Why did it have to be like this? She imagined dying an old woman in a bed, warm and sound. But she was so young now, so very, very cold, and so alone. More proof that she knew nothing at all. She was wrong about Elsa her entire life, wrong about Hans, wrong about Kristoff.

Now all I know is life's too short…

So much she wanted to say. She wanted to tell Elsa she'd forgiven her, to relieve her of the cross she bore, take the burden of guilt away because it was over now. They were together again. She wanted to tell Kristoff she missed him in a way she'd never knew she was capable of. She wanted to ask him to hold her in his arms again, for just a little bit longer.

It was over now. Elsa would live, Hans would see her survive this execution but Anna would be dead before they could meet again. She held in her mind the last image she had of her sister. For dear life she clung to it, hoping whatever god received her on the other side would let her keep it.

"This place is nice and toasty," came a familiar voice. Anna looked over to see the waddling snowman and his carrot nose jammed into the door lock. He yanked it out and replaced it on his face.

"Olaf…" Anna struggled to get out.

He let out a yelp when he saw her and came rushing over toward her.

"We need to get you closer to the fire, Anna."

He tugged on her cloak and allowed her to lean on him as he led her towards the dying fireplace. Once there, she kneeled on the ground, hugging herself. Dissatisfied with the flames, Olaf took upon himself to light another match and bring the fire up to a roar.

"Olaf, get away from there, you'll melt!" Anna cried out, watching the snowman begin to sweat profusely as he moved towards the flames.

"So this is heat…" he whispered, holding out his twig arms, "Oh but don't touch it!" He shook his hand, which caught fire.

"Olaf, you'll melt you need to go," Anna pleaded.

"I won't leave you here alone. We need to find you an act of true love," Olaf said, pulling a blanket around her. She shivered uncontrollably, she couldn't feel the fire and could barely feel the blanket.

"I don't even know what love is," Anna sighed.

Everyone was someone else's and the one person she thought she might belong to left hours ago back into the wilderness and she'd probably never find him again.

"That's okay," Olaf said, "I do. Love is putting someone else's needs before your own, like when Elsa made you leave the palace because she knew those men wanted to hurt her and she didn't want you to see."

Wait…the duke's men…the execution. She'd seen the men on her way into the castle…the way they were sharpening their swords…the way they sneered…Something else was going on that Kai and Hans could not control.

"Olaf, you're melting," Anna said weakly.

"That's okay, some people are worthy melting for," he said through sagging body parts.

Anna felt tears in her eyes for reasons she couldn't really explain. She thought of Elsa alone, curled up in the dark, sleeping in the ice palace atop a mountain. She pictured an eight-year-old version of that girl doing the exact same thing. And for that girl she cried.

Hiding away on that mountain was love, closing the door for years was love, wearing those gloves was love. And now Anna had to get to Elsa, because Elsa had to know those things she was dying to say. She had to protect her from those men and tell her one last time I'm sorry and I love you and I forgive you.

And Olaf, the innocent, carefree snowman full of nothing but love. He was everything Elsa tried to hide about herself, everything she was afraid to admit she was capable of. When she built him a piece of her soul lodged in his heart and it suddenly became clear: he was the link that was missing in those thirteen years. He gapped their differences and all those years. Elsa finally made a key to her locked door, and it was standing right there.

"Olaf, help me up," she said and the snowman quickly obeyed.

Leaning on Olaf, she hobbled her way out to a fray in town. There were fights and gun powered and smoke. Much of it seemed contained but stragglers still fought against each other. What had happened here? She spotted Hans being tended to, looking quite wounded. She didn't have time for him, as much as she wanted to help.

She saw the men, who looked back at her as a shiver racked her body and she slipped onto the ground in a painful groan as parts of her body became completely immobile in the freeze.

When she looked up the men were gone. Anna gave chase with what little power she had left.

Out to the fjord and into the whiteout. She led them away from the scuffle into her blizzard. She wanted to lead them into the wilderness, back up the mountain, far away from where they could harm her family. And she would take herself far away in the process, away from where she could harm her family.

I am one with the wind and sky…

…but she couldn't see a thing. She was no better than the snowflakes around her, blustering through the wind, matching the sky and the ground. She could find no difference between what was beneath her feet and what was above her head. The horizon was nowhere in sight.

And she was losing blood. The adrenaline that had carried her away from the gallows was gone now and she felt the weight of her injury and exertion. She was getting dizzy and nauseous and weak. She had to stay awake. She had to keep her eyes open and keep moving. But there was a lot of blood…and the wound turned red…

I am one with the wind and sky…

She'd be one with the ground soon. The duke's thugs were catching up, clad in red, they were a smear in the bath of white. They were the red horsemen of the apocalypse bringing the slaughter. This was the fields of Armageddon in Arendelle's apocalypse. Elsa was Isaac upon the mountain awaiting the angel to strike down, praying God reprieved her.

"Please!" she cried out, "All I ever wanted was to keep Arendelle, to keep my sister and family, safe! The duke can't be paying you so much that you can't understand that."

They only smiled, one nudged the other in the shoulder.

"Your sister's dead you know, she was frozen, I guess it was your fault."

There was an infinity between what they said and when Elsa reacted. She looked at her hands and imagined them as red as they suddenly felt. Anna was gone, Anna was dead, it finally happened, the nightmare was real.

Elsa failed. In the end it was always this. It was always heading here. This was the sword sacrifice now as she heard them behind her pulling swords out, spent of arrows. But the prophecy was wrong…all perished in snow and ice anyway, at least for Elsa.

She was on the ground, the ice was beneath her, the cold reflection staring back at her was all she had left, her own guilty blue eyes producing tears. This was it. Would she be allowed to see Anna again? Would she get to see Papa and Mama? Did dying hurt? What would it feel like, a second and then blackness? Did the blackness hurt?

The weakness from her wound was nothing compared to the total, buzzing, numbness going through her body. Hopefully she'd be numb just long enough for them to strike. Perhaps in the last second she'd regain feeling just in time to feel every capillary and artery bursting, to feel every break and tear in her skin, to feel her organs give out, perhaps she'd find out what cold felt like after all.

It never came. Instead she heard a yell.

"NO!"

It was loud, it was strangled, it was desperate. The yell was followed by a blast of air and Elsa turned.

And then everything got worse.

"Anna!"

A solid sculpting of ice in the image of her sister was standing there, arm outstretched and body placed precisely to shield her elder sister. The duke's men were knocked back, apparently unconscious, back on the ice, the shards of a sword, shattered to pieces, was scattered on the ground.

Elsa struggled to pull herself to her feet and practically fell on her sister's solid form. She couldn't find the strength to stand and she clung to Anna's body tightly, hanging off her. Elsa heard words coming out of her own mouth but wasn't sure what they were through the sobs.

It was all so real now. Elsa was eight years old again clinging to the cold body of her dying sister. This was the grown up version. It was all too real now, Anna was truly gone and Elsa was truly alone. She didn't care now, if the mob came and took her away.

Why did everyone step between her and doom? Hans and arrows, Anna and a sword. Why did the universe want her alive so badly? What did she offer, why was she chosen to live in the place of those who deserved life more than she?

I've given so much, you owe me just this one thing. Bring her back….

The sobs continued for what could have been hours though only moments passed. She felt lightheaded again, her arm began to ache anew. Her body got heavy and she began to sweat. Was she finally dying now too?

She was slipping in her grip from Anna's body. And it looked almost like Anna was moving, in her blurred vision she saw Anna's color retuned, she saw her begin to move. A fever dream, nothing more. Anna's eyes on her were only a wishful thought as she passed into the abyss. Anna calling her name, holding her body was a distorted memory of the night these roles were reversed.

Elsa closed her eyes.

It was a sight to see and the entire kingdom saw it. The princess on her knees on the fjord, cradling the body of her elder sister in her arms. The snowflakes hung in the air all over the kingdom but not around the sisters, the eye of the storm was empty air, a border just for them: one sister resurrected, the other dying in her arms.

Elsa's vision was blurry, her head pounded, she felt like closing her eyes and never opening them again.

"No, Elsa stay awake," Anna said.

Anna…? But she was…

Elsa opened her eyes wider and saw the misty outline of her sister. It was unmistakably Anna looking back at her with worried, but impossibly bright eyes. Was Elsa dead? Was she granted the reprieve of seeing her sister after all? But no…she was in too much pain to be dead.

Elsa was shaking, and sweating, and the pain in her arm was blinding.

"What's happening?" Elsa said shakily.

"You're hurt," Anna said, "You've—you've lost a lot of blood and it's infected," she said.

Anna sounded as shaky as Elsa felt. Her eyes were closing again.

"Am I dead?" she whispered.

"No," Anna smiled teary-eyed, stroking her face and pushing back a few sweat matted strands of silver hair, "You're so alive. And I'm right here. I've got you Elsa."

Elsa felt her head going again and began feeling very…cold. Never in her life had she felt this. This was what cold felt like? It felt like something creeping under her skin and through her veins. It felt like darkness. It felt like indifference and apathy and a bit like numbness.

"Hans…" Elsa said.

"He's fine," Anna assured, "He's…wounded and banged up but he's okay." There was a phrase hidden behind that statement that sounded an awful lot like "he's better than you."

There was that at least. Elsa felt the numbness get up to her eyes and her lids got so very, very heavy. She wanted to rest, she just needed to rest. Just for a moment, it wouldn't be long. Just a nap, she'd close her eyes for only a little bit and she'd wake back up in no time.

Anna was yelling at her to keep her eyes open, just a little bit longer. She felt tears on her face that she knew were not her own.

Please Elsa, please don't leave me here on the ice alone.

Elsa felt her mind slip away. I'm sorry Anna.