A/N: Thanks to all the new followers and faves! You've picked a good time to join us. There are only four chapters left to this story. I hope you enjoy them. Everyone else, thank you for sharing this ride with me.
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Chapter 25 – Shipwreck of Destiny
The door between bedchamber and bathroom was left open while Anna had her bath. Elsa rested against the headboard of her bed, her mind still fuzzy with the syrup of poppies that she had received and bemused by the sudden turn of events.
It was as if she had wished upon a star, and Anna had come to her. A bolt from the blue.
If only all her wishes could come so true. If so, she would wish upon a million stars, and a million bolts of thunder, and all her wishes would be the same.
To stay. To live. And to be with Anna for the rest of her life.
She would not think of Isolde's prophecy, of her great and terrible destiny. Not now, when she was reunited with Anna.
She listened as Anna hummed snippets of songs while she bathed. The water sounded warm and slick and wonderful and with all her heart Elsa wished she could just get right into the tub with her.
Elsa spent the next few minutes thinking of what it would be like to be able to bathe with Anna, to sit behind her, and draw a cloth over her skin. To lean forward and kiss her freckled shoulder. To run her fingers through the fragrant mass of strawberry hair. To place her palm on Anna's breast and tilt her head and kiss her warm mouth. They had only shared two baths together while at the chalet, back when they still thought they were sisters. Oh, how wonderful it would be to bathe with Anna again, without that dread taboo upon them!
Then she had to stop thinking of such things, for heat was rising in places she could not easily satisfy.
Elsa wasn't sure how long Anna spent in the tub, washing away the scent of wet horses and warming her skin from the thunderstorm. She was beginning to drift again, her thoughts tumbling, the pain of her injuries once again gaining clarity and sharpness as the painkiller subsided and exhaustion began to set in. She wasn't sure exactly what hour of night it was, but sleep summoned her with a crooked finger of feathers and down. She resisted the urge to sleep, for she did not want to miss a single moment. Not now, when they were reunited, and the universe had once again righted itself.
Yet when she returned to awareness, she realized that Anna was dressed in a light nightgown and sat in a chair next to Elsa's bed, quietly eating a huge bowl of fish soup, accompanied with boiled potatoes and vegetables. "Sorry, honey," Elsa breathed. "I guess I dropped off there."
"S'okay," Anna replied over a mouthful of potatoes. She swallowed her food and continued, "You need your rest." She took a sip of tea.
"I need you," Elsa quietly said.
Anna paused before her next spoonful, her smile brilliant, her teal eyes sparkling with life and levity. "You have me, Elsa. Like it or not, you're stuck with me." She leaned forward and kissed Elsa briefly on the lips.
"Good." Elsa closed her eyes, wincing slightly as her stitches pulled over her cheek. She blindly reached out with her hand and put it on Anna's knee. She felt Anna pat it twice with her plastered hand before she resumed eating.
Elsa settled deeper into her pillows, ignoring the throbbing ache of her shoulder and leg. She could feel Anna's reality under her palm, she could hear her eating, and she was almost astonished at how much ease she felt now that Anna had returned to her.
How worried had her secret heart been, to feel this measure of release at Anna's mere presence? Had she really thought that Anna would never return?
Some part of her must have wondered.
What did Anna think to look at her now, with all of her marks and scars? Was she too altered? Elsa had seen her face in a mirror and had recoiled at the bruised and battered reflection. What did Anna see when she looked at her?
Stop being foolish, Elsa. Anna loves you, whether or not you look like a stormcloud ran over you.
Some time later she felt Anna lift her hand from her knee. Elsa sleepily opened her eye. "Just returning the tray to the kitchen, love," Anna whispered. "I'll be right back."
"Hurry back."
"I will."
Anna was true to her word; between one blink of the eye and another, she had returned.
Then she stood by the other side of the bed, a look of slight concern on her face. "What is it, sweetie?" Elsa asked.
"Should I sleep somewhere else?" Anna asked. "I mean, I don't want to hurt you."
"Don't you dare sleep anywhere else. You won't hurt me. My right side is all messed up, though, so why don't you pull me over to the other side of the bed so I can at least cuddle you with my left."
The look of sudden terror on Anna's face was adorable, probably from considering how on earth she was going to help Elsa switch sides of the bed. "It's easier than you think," Elsa quickly added. "I'm going to use my magic to form a slippery fabric between me and the sheet. And you just gently pull it, and me, over. Sera and I have done it a few times. It will be okay."
"I sometimes forget how useful your magic can be," Anna admitted. "Okay, let's do it. I'll try not to hurt you."
"I'm tough, honey. I can handle it."
"I know," Anna quickly answered. Her eyes were a bit furtive as she spoke, and Elsa wondered what Anna was thinking just then. She made a mental note to ask about it when she woke up – she was far too tired to pursue it now. Too tired, and in too much pain.
Too happy as well, her heart full and delighted at Anna's mere presence.
The whole operation was as smooth and easy as Elsa had promised. Soon she was on the other side of the bed. Anna began to climb in when Elsa stopped her. "If you wouldn't mind, I mean… if it's okay…" Elsa began, before she blushed and stopped.
"Whatever you want, Elsa. Just ask," Anna said, confused.
"Do you need clothes?" Elsa made herself ask, blushing fiercely. "Because if you don't, I would love to feel your skin."
Anna smiled and began to pull off the light nightgown she had donned. "What about you?" she asked as she pulled it over her head. Elsa barely heard her, for her focus was somewhere else entirely.
As before, Elsa could see the soft pink scar on Anna's chest where the catheter had once been, but then her eyes feasted on the rest of her loveliness. She was astonished at the way her body responded to Anna, standing before her in the firelight. Even with the plaster cast on her wrist and the soft pink scar on her chest, she was still the most beautiful woman Elsa had ever seen.
She had missed Anna more than words or kisses could ever tell.
"Elsa?" Anna asked again, mirth in her voice, as she casually dropped her nightgown on the floor.
Oh, right.
Elsa smirked at her, and then concentrated. Her clothing first shimmered, and then disappeared completely, leaving only the cotton sling for her arm and shoulder.
Anna stood there for a moment clad only in her smallclothes, and then she shook her head, a beautiful and rueful smile on her face. "Is there anything you can't do?" she whispered.
Elsa thought of facing Erasmus and her breath gave out. Thunder rolled inside her head as her face and shoulder suddenly throbbed in pain.
When Anna remained there, looking at her with that oh-so-lovely concern on her face, Elsa whispered the truth, "I can't keep thinking of him, Anna. He lurks behind my every thought. It's like he's inside my head. I don't want him there anymore. I only want you."
Anna gracefully lowered herself into the open space in the bed, pulling the sheet over her, her eyes always on Elsa's. She snuggled up close, and then put her bath-warmed fingers against Elsa's arm, her fingers trailing momentarily over Elsa's bare breast. "I know what you mean," Anna admitted. "Ever since we heard Synneva's story he has been roaming the back of my mind."
"I can't live like this. In constant terror of him, in terror of the moment I must face him. I only want to be Elsa again, Anna. I don't want this destiny." Elsa was shocked to discover her voice shaking in distress, tears thronging behind her eyes, making her injured eye sting. "Oh, I'm sorry, Anna. I didn't want your homecoming to be like this. I'll stop talking about it." She tried to force her tears back inside, but then she looked at Anna's face.
"Tell me, Elsa," Anna whispered. "Talk to me. I can't read your mind. You can say anything you want to me. Please trust me."
Elsa briefly closed her eyes to Anna, feeling compassion coming from her in waves. Could she be a ship, and sail upon Anna's compassion and hope, seeing as she had so little hope for herself?
She opened her eyes again and continued, her voice small. "Oh Anna, to think that once I dreaded being Queen. We are punished for thinking so little of ourselves. We are punished for dreaming so small. If only I could just be queen again, and not the instrument of destiny. Not a future corpse laying at the huntsman's feet."
"Elsa," Anna pleaded. "Please don't talk like that. We don't know what's going to happen, not yet. No one knows." There was a strange note of desperation in Anna's voice, but Elsa now felt too wild to pursue it.
"Who am I, Anna?" Elsa softly cried. She didn't know where these words were coming from, but by the way they flowed over her tongue like acid she knew they were truth, they were fear, and they came from deep inside. "I'm just a silly girl who happens to be a Queen. A flaw of my birth alone! If only…" and her voice trailed off at seeing the agony in Anna's face.
"Who are you, Elsa?" Anna whispered, soft and fierce. "Let me tell you who you are. Yes, you are the Queen of Arendelle. You are the daughter of Queen Isolde, and King Henrik. You have been born with the spark of magic in your veins. You have spent your whole life being the good girl, concealing your magic as you concealed your true feelings. But now, Elsa?
"You are the instrument of destiny. You are the fulfillment of prophecy. You have a fate more great and terrible than any other ruler in our history.
"And you are also the most incredible woman I have ever known. There is no part of you that I don't love and cherish. Even this fate, Elsa. Even this doom. I must love it, because it belongs to you. It is part of you.
"But right now, honey, could you just hold me? Hold me and love me, and save our fears for tomorrow?" Anna's voice shook with exhaustion and feeling, and the sound of it thrummed inside Elsa's heart. "For now we're just two girls in love with each other. Love me, Elsa. Destiny can wait."
Elsa felt the warmth of Anna's fingers on her skin, saw the blazing ardour of Anna's gaze. Her words were beauty incarnate, and Elsa allowed those words to wrap a blanket of warmth and caring about her frozen and broken frame. "How did you become so wise?" she whispered, looking at her cousin with a measure of awe.
Anna did not answer. Elsa could see the truth rising out of her broken wrist, out of the healed catheter hole in her chest. Life had marked Anna in ways Elsa could scarcely imagine.
Anna left her no more space for thought, for she covered Elsa's lips with her own, a strange desperation in the kiss. Elsa closed her eyes and let herself fall into the darkness behind her eyelids, into the warm and adoring depths of Anna's affection.
And after a short time, Elsa passed over the shore of wakefulness, stepping blithely onto the frozen fjord of unconsciousness, and there the healing sleep began again, aided by the heart of the earth now pulsing from within its leather pouch on the bedside table. This broken diamond flashed in colour, in tune with the slow and contented lubbing of Elsa's heart, drawing health and energy from two other women within the chalet. It then sent those tendrils of strength and goodness and unconditional love into Elsa's healing body, lending vigour to her muscles, potency to her blood, and encouragement to the angelic being also slumbering in a healing sleep next to Elsa's spine.
…
So Elsa remained for some time, asleep and dreaming simple dreams that she would not remember upon awaking. Here in the dreamscape she was healthy and whole as she had been before the events of her coronation, but even her sleeping mind would never swap that empty and cheerless healthful existence for the pained and glorious reality that now existed, no matter the price.
There was no image she would remember upon waking, no pronouncement of destiny or doom. This was just sleep, dearly needed.
Sleep, suddenly, painfully, broken.
Elsa crashed to wakefulness as if the prow of a broken ship had impaled her through the shoulder, taking her very heart as its rightful prize.
Anna had sat bolt upright in bed, the light sheet pooled at her waist. She was hunched over, her face in her hands, body convulsing with sobs.
Elsa blinked and tried to control the splintering wreck of pain raging through her body, her dreams and sleep tossed overboard like meaningless cargo. She reached out, her hand passing through a thin ray of moonlight
(the storm has moved on
oh my Anna, what is wrong?)
before touching Anna's thigh.
At her touch, Anna sobbed harder.
Elsa cleared her throat and struggled to a sitting position. Her vision swam with agony before she was upright, but she did not care. Not with Anna's piteous, bear cub cries, not with the way her freckled shoulders shook with restrained emotion.
Once she was upright, she reached out with her arm, and drew Anna fully into her body. Only with this insistent touch did Anna reach out in return, and she clutched at Elsa as if they were the only survivors of a great shipwreck. They were specks of stardust on planks of wood stranded within the streams of the galaxy, storm-tossed by destiny, and there was no safe harbour.
"Anna, dearest, talk to me, please," Elsa whispered, wishing, oh wishing she could reach out with both arms. That she could see with both eyes. That she could comfort with the whole desperate desire of her salted heart.
"I'm sorry," Anna cried. "Elsa, I'm sorry, I didn't want to wake you..." She cried a little harder and Elsa's poor spirit tore open a little wider.
"Ssh, it's okay, I'm glad I'm awake, you can always wake me up. Oh, my pet." Elsa held Anna close, rocking her just a little in her one-armed embrace.
"I just, I don't want to lose you, Elsa. I'm so sorry, I know I said I didn't want to talk about him anymore but I… I…" and she dissolved into further gales of tears, her body shaking with the tempest of her grief. Every movement tore at Elsa's injured shoulder, making her eyes sting with tears, but Elsa grit her teeth and bore it. She bore it for the sake of one most dearly beloved.
"Talk to me, Anna," Elsa urged, Anna's grief igniting her own. "Was it a dream? Tell me, please."
For long minutes Anna could not speak. She had her leg wrapped around Elsa's, and her body shook with restrained emotion. Her hair was near Elsa's face, and it smelled like vanilla and flowers. Elsa held her, aware of tears trickling down her face, tickling and stinging her cheek, but she couldn't move her arm to wipe them.
"This was no dream, Elsa. Oh, God, if only it were a dream." She paused awhile, her face still hidden by the night-darkened expanse of her hair. Only as Elsa was about to speak again did Anna continue. "I saw Grand Pabbie today," Anna suddenly said. From some inner well of courage she lifted her head, and Elsa saw a universe of anguish in her eyes.
Fear struck Elsa as surely as did the bolt of the archer five days ago. It pierced her heart, left it as cloven as the suffering diamond in the little leather pouch on the nightstand.
Had she ever seen such grief on a person's face? Such agonizing depths of despair?
And it was all for her. She knew this as surely as she felt the phantom splinters of the ship's prow through her shoulder and heart.
"What did he say?" Elsa asked. "Anna, what did he tell you?"
The story passed awfully, and with great wounding, over Anna's lips. Elsa listened in mounting horror, now understanding Anna's strange and distracted look before they slept.
I'll try not to hurt you, Anna had said.
I'm tough, honey. I can handle it, Elsa had replied.
Maybe not.
Because, according to this patriarch of the trolls, Elsa was indeed doomed.
Hers was a great and terrible doom.
A shipwreck of destiny.
…
Not even the trolls themselves know their exact origin. Did some spirit of earth decide upon consciousness one day, to lift bleary eyes from a constant perusal of the ground and its forces and wonder what it would feel like to breathe air and touch the sky? Did some angel fall from its perch in heaven; to strike the earth like a flint strikes steel, and the sparks alone created life wherever they fell, whether upon stone, water or ice?
Whatever their origin, they know their power, inherently tied with the power of living rock, with the tides and forces of the earth.
They knew it when the heart of their existence was cloven from the rock by a traitorous human's hands. They felt it when it was taken from the kingdom of their kinsmen, the lost ones, de underjordiske. It was like an earthquake had toppled their hearts, cloaked their lungs in cloying dust, and robbed them of vitality and life.
Near two hundred years ago it was that Erasmus, the huntsman, named daskdraudigs, the stone eater, the rivened spirit, the rock dragon, stole the heart of the earth.
And for two hundred years, the trolls have been sickening. Their life spans shortened, their magical power diminished, they discovered the growing and harvesting of certain minerals and crystals, all mere shadows compared to the power of the heart of the earth. In his youth Grand Pabbie had discovered one such, a crystal of wind. For a hundred long years he had cultivated it, breathed his own life and essence into it, sharing his dreams, his desires, his own secret and shallow darknesses.
And when it was ripe, like the most delicious fruit of the earth's womb, Grand Pabbie (back then he was named Haldor, and for all his hundred plus years of age he was still considered young and impulsive) had plucked it from its place in the earth and showed it to the then-patriarch of his clan.
It also turned out to be the first crystal that Erasmus had demanded in tribute from the trolls when he came upon them not a year later. He vowed to leave this small settlement in peace if the trolls would perform likewise, and come not against him in war or in rebellion. He took from them their greatest crystals of power, including the crystal of wind, and the crystal of the moon.
Grand Pabbie found he missed the sighing of the crystal at night, when he had held his granite ear against its gleaming surface to hear the lapping of gentle breezes against high mountain peaks, or to hear the shrill shriek of gale-force winds as they whipped up froth and horror upon deep seas. For more than a hundred years he had cared for this crystal, and sheltered it from all who could have harmed it, and now it was gone. Gone, in a bargain with a devil.
The only benefit to this transaction was Grand Pabbie's own connection to the crystal, so carefully cultivated and grown. For if he concentrated, and sent his thoughts like filaments into the earth, he could sense the location of the huntsman. He could sense the expenditure of the huntsman's greatest acts of magic, especially those using the crystal of the wind.
A small benefit indeed, considering what had been lost.
Oh, to be young and headstrong. To see only the surfaces of things.
It was unfortunate that age had not always brought him wisdom.
The troll clan had made the pact, and Grand Pabbie remembered burning with the injustice of having to pay tribute to this devil of a man bearing an iron ring.
He should have remembered those feelings, now more than a hundred years in his past, when Anna, Princess of Arendelle, came to him, bearing a story and the broken heart of the earth. He should have remembered how it felt to burn with conviction, to cry for justice, to plead for assistance. To have his then-patriarch use words of caution, of temperance, and suing for time and peace by whatever means necessary.
Yes, Grand Pabbie should have remembered being young, back when he was still called Haldor.
He did not.
All his rational thought had been obliterated by his first look at the broken heart of the earth. He could not have believed it possible that this most precious piece of magic, magic that was indelibly connected to the very ground they stood upon, had passed into the keeping of this slender and young and incredibly foolish human girl.
But there it was. She had held it out to him, and it pulsed in a rhythm that matched the girl's own, but did she know it was more than the rhythm of her own heart? Could she know that it was the subtle and immortal beat of this poor broken earth itself, the redness composed of its molten and fiery core, the diamond supposedly impenetrable? Could she know that the earth itself suffered every day that its heart remained broken, and that it longed – no, wept, for healing?
The trolls, wardens of the earth, holders of an ancient pact of caretaking and husbandry, perished a little more with every day that passed. All because of this broken stone in Anna's hand, stolen so long ago by a man with greed and good intentions. The only prayer Grand Pabbie could whisper in his heart was that Erasmus no longer owned this precious molten core of magic, for if it were in his possession, the outcome would be catastrophic.
It had taken everything in his power not to snatch it from her hand and hold it to his own stone heart, and weep a tear or two upon its luminous surface. To wrest it from the Princess and take it to the primeval and secret places of the underworld, there to be protected forever from those who would do it further harm.
Or even to offer it as a gift to the huntsman, so that Grand Pabbie could get back what had been taken from him. Surely it would be a better gift than those others Grand Pabbie had offered the huntsman over the years, surely it would be enough to get her back.
Skolda in the moonlight, the stars in her hair.
But if the trolls had learned anything in the last twenty years, it was to beware humans. And to beware those most especially of the royal line. Yes, the trolls cried fealty to the kings and queens of Arendelle, as did all magical creatures who resided in human borders (humans being remarkably protective about such things as fealty and power and lines drawn on a map marking territory), but that did not mean that the line of Old Henrik the Just was to be trusted.
If only all humans could be as trusting and genuine as Kristoff. Bulda had made a son of him, and his clan had accepted him as completely as they could anyone who was composed of muscle and bone. Grand Pabbie himself loved the young man beyond thought or reason, even in moments like this, when Kristoff stood with the Princess.
It was reason and logic and a certain hard-heartedness he needed with Anna's entreaty in his ears, her request (and then command) that he tell her everything he knew about the huntsman and magic and the heart of the earth. Basically, that he reveal the secret history of his clan for the last several hundred years, in the space of hours, with nothing but her word to keep his words close to her heart.
And yet some truth would have to be told. She had to know the precipice upon which she stood, she and her cousin. She had to know how carefully she must tread, or the fates of more than Arendelle would stand in the balance.
Damn Helena and Ivar and Agnarr and the rest of them, for all their secrets and lies, for all the deception that created such dangerous ignorance in this girl's mind!
Damn all Kings and Queens of Arendelle for their well-meaning but disastrous choices, that had brought such personal ruin to Grand Pabbie's life. The pain of missing Skolda had not appreciably eased in the last twenty years.
Oh, Skolda! They had adored each other since infancy. She had been loving, and loyal, and as stubborn as the mountains. She had not always agreed with his choices. She had a fiery heart and a quick temper, and had argued most persuasively for the alliance with Ivar just over twenty years ago. Against his better judgment, he had indeed allied with the old King, and their clan had sent a dozen troll scouts with the secret army that intended the destruction of the huntsman.
The names of those scouts were now etched deep into the stone in their most sacred place, for they had all been lost.
And when the disastrous campaign was over, Erasmus had come to the clan, bearing more magical power than Grand Pabbie had thought possible. He threatened to eliminate the entire Valley of Living Rock and every troll within it as punishment.
And it had been Grand Pabbie's dear wife, his Skolda, who had stepped forward. A free and willing sacrifice, to live as a captive of the huntsman, in exchange for the continued safety of her people.
That she lived and was not dead was scant consolation to Grand Pabbie. She lived, for their renewed pact with Erasmus remained strong, but now this young foolish Princess stood before him and threatened that pact with every word she spoke.
How far did the huntman's influence lie, how far could his attention spread? Could even this conversation be known to that daskdraudigs, that stone dragon? This very moment, was Grand Pabbie gambling with his wife's life? With the lives of their clan's little ones, who rolled and played and grew their own crystals of power?
Yet the Princess was here. And if he did not say what he knew, then he placed his clan in even greater danger.
He could sense the end of it all as she held out the broken heart of the earth in her hands. How many of his people would die before it was over? Could it ever be over? Or would the plague of the huntsman spread, like a cancer, spilling forth from Arendelle to infect the very world? In secret council with other troll patriarchs they had discussed how this man might be stopped, and determined that not even their combined power, with all their crystals and all their songs, could withstand against him, never mind defeat him.
But then Anna told a story that stopped his heart with truth. His disbelieving ears had only to look at the winking heart in Anna's outstretched hands, and the broken diamond silently confirmed each and every one of Anna's words.
Destiny had chosen a champion.
(hope rises!)
He had known Elsa was not Anna's sister. He had known the true identity of the Queen of Arendelle. He remembered Isolde and Henrik, though he had only seen them from afar. Even the day that Agnarr had brought the young girls to his valley, he had kept the knowledge of Elsa's identity close to his heart. Indeed, it had coloured his advice to the King, for with all his heart and soul Grand Pabbie would keep the pact he had made with the huntsman, and thereby keep his wife safe.
Of course he counselled caution, and prudence. Of course he stole Anna's memories of Elsa's magic. Of course he advised the King to make a prisoner of Elsa, to control her and her magic. The advice had scorched him with its untruth, its narrowness, but still he spoke it, knowing he was no better than these ragged kings who only sought to protect their own.
He kept hope for himself, and gave not hope to the king, nor his princesses. And in the end, his hope was a bitter and miserly thing, scarce bright enough to bring Skolda's face to his memory.
His deepest regret he kept hidden in the great depths of his stone heart, never to be uttered, never to be shared. For he had shamefully sold Anna's stolen memories to the huntsman, all those beautiful childhood memories of sisterhood and fun and play, all showing the budding magical promise of the young Queen-to-be.
And what had that transaction even brought him? A night and a day with his Skolda, though when he had finally revealed by what means he had purchased this too-short and precious reunion, she had turned her back on him, and walked away. The night unfinished.
There was no worse memory in all his long life than the sight of his dear wife turning away from him, willingly returning to her pledge, her captivity. There was no greater cavern in his heart than returning to his clan in the red flames of dawn, even more alone than before. Anna's precious memories wasted, like water upon stone.
Grand Pabbie did all these things, thinking he was wise. Thinking he was careful. By Loki, he had been wrong, and more than wrong.
For Anna spoke, and the heart of the earth whispered truth, and shame covered Grand Pabbie's heart.
For Anna spoke of Isolde's dream of prophecy, and it was as if a lock turned inside the perceptions and consciousness of this most ancient of trolls.
A free and willing sacrifice.
And his heart broke for this earnest young woman, who was so young, so foolish, and so terribly in love. Though she spoke not of her feelings for Elsa, it was apparent in the throbbing tenor of her voice, in the catching of certain words over her tongue, and in the way her eyes sometimes seemed so very far away.
It was apparent in Kristoff's own misery, the way his hand would never stray towards her.
Grand Pabbie knew loss. He knew pain. He knew the endless torment of loneliness. Had not his own Skolda been taken? Did he not pray for her wellbeing with every moment that passed? Did he not wish to erase that terrible image from his mind, of Skolda turning away from him in the moonlight?
Did he not know that such feelings were futile? He knew the doom of his own dear one, just as he now knew the doom of the Queen of Arendelle. She was ordained to be the vessel of the gods, a galleon of fate, to be similarly swallowed by the ocean of destiny as the seas had swallowed her adoptive parents.
Her spirit would rise into the heavens, and he would gaze upon her star, so bright within the wash of the galaxy, and he would remember her sacrifice for a thousand years.
Oh, yes, his heart broke for Princess Anna, as break it would, like the heart of the earth itself.
And because this truth deserved to be told, even in doses too great and terrible to be swallowed, he opened his mouth and spoke the words that would haunt Anna for the next two hundred years.
…
"And he said, 'Don't you know by now how this must end? Magic needs a free and willing sacrifice. Perhaps Elsa is the only person who is able to combat the towering dark destiny of this man, the only one who can match him in power.'
"'But if she is, it will take everything of her. Do you understand, Anna? Everything. She will not live beyond it.'
"'Like your very own ancestor and namesake, whose stone you hold in your hand, Elsa will have to sacrifice her very life if he is to be defeated. You cannot change this. You cannot save her. Not from this.'"
Anna couldn't stop. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks wet with tears. She and Elsa were cuddled soft and warm and heart-breakingly close to each other under the thin coverlet. "And I replied, 'You're wrong, Grand Pabbie. I can save her again, just like I saved her before.'
"Oh, Elsa, if only I could forget his words! But he spoke, and I remember them, as if they were chiselled into my heart. 'Anna,' he continued, 'you cannot save her. Not from a fate that has been decreed since before her birth. The spirits of heaven, earth, and sky have chosen their champion. They have chosen their sacrifice. Could any dark power be torn down except by a being such as she? She can defeat him. She is the only one who can. And, my dear girl, who are you to deny us this chance? To deny us this opportunity to be rid of him?'
"'In the end, what will you choose, Anna? Will you stand by her on the last day? When the end comes, will you let her go? Will you allow her to fulfill her destiny?'" Anna paused long enough to wipe her eyes. "Kristoff got mad at him, then. Told him to stop goading and manipulating me. I couldn't stay any longer, not with those words in my mind. I shouted something back at him, and I won't even tell you what I told him, Elsa, you'll have to imagine it, imagine what words came out of my fear and anger.
"And then I left, and Kristoff and Sven and Olaf all came with me. I kept my mouth shut for a while, I was still so incredibly angry, and that is when Kristoff told me more. More of Grand Pabbie's story, and of the clan's long involvement with the huntsman. Kristoff had never known who this ancient enemy of the trolls was, but he put the pieces together easily enough.
"Erasmus hasn't only haunted our family and our kingdom, Elsa. He has also stolen magic from the trolls. He has stolen people."
Her eyes were gleaming with tears, her voice hoarse. Elsa listened with all her soul. "Grand Pabbie's own wife is also a captive of the huntsman, Elsa. Skolda. Her name is Skolda. She also sacrificed herself to save her clan."
Anna then stopped speaking, and merely trembled in Elsa's arms for a time.
Elsa closed her eyes and held her close to her heart.
"Elsa, what will we do?" Anna finally asked, speaking the words into Elsa's damp skin.
Once again Elsa used her fingers to lift Anna's chin. "I will tell you what we will do, Anna," Elsa whispered, soft and fierce. "We will love each other. We will live together, we will rule together, and we will support each other for as long as we can. We will count each day as precious, because we know… oh my dearest…" and Elsa's voice trembled, "we know our time together will be short.
"Kiss me, Anna, and love me, because this moment is all that matters. And this moment we are together."
Anna had been gazing searchingly into Elsa's eyes, and at Elsa's final words she lunged forward and latched her mouth onto Elsa's. The kiss was hot and wild and desperate, with mercurial breaths and clicking of teeth as they moved against each other.
When the pain in her body became too great to contain, Elsa opened her mouth and uttered a short cry. It disappeared into the soft beauty of Anna's mouth before Anna pulled away.
"Elsa? Are you okay?"
"I'm all right," Elsa breathed, taking short and careful breaths to calm the wreck of pain in her shoulder and heart.
Then her eyes silvered bright with moonlight, shining with conviction and power, the thrice-given authority of an angel, a queen, and a sorceress. "If I am to be the ship of destiny, then by all the gods of heaven and earth, I'll take the huntsman down into the depths with me. This I swear, upon my head and my crown."
Anna heard these words, and carved them deep in her poor and broken heart, a sister-wound to Grand Pabbie's pronouncement of Elsa's doom.
And Anna wept, cradled in Elsa's body and embrace, exhausted in body and soul, until at last she slept.