Hi. There is more Anna in this chapter. I promise we'll get a wider variety of people in the next chapter, but in till then have fun with this one.
-Whovian123
Disclaimer: I do not own frozen.
I do not make it to breakfast, but I do make it to lunch. Anna did not let me leave when I tried; she insisted that Hans does not deserve me at breakfast. I do not know whether I believe her, but I do know that the thought makes it easier to sit through lunch.
Hans ignores me, pausing only for the slightest of moments when I walk through the door with Anna. He recovers with ease and waits by my chair for me to take my seat. I play along and thank him as he pushes the chair back to the table, securing me within its arms, unable to run.
Food is in front of me before I get a chance to panic. While allowing myself to eat the heaping piles of vegetables I ask Kia for water yet again. He obliges, but this time it is with the begging's of a question in his eyes. Of course it is not unreasonable to crave water, but it is strange for me to feel the need to be discrete in my requests, as I have been the last several days.
Though, no one questions me swapping my wine for water, they are all too interested in what a young aristocrat is saying. He would appear to be telling a story, though of what I cannot be bothered to discover. Kasper seems to be spared from the spell the tale is weaving and insists on trying to catch my eye.
I turn to Anna in a bid to avoid him. She looks small and fragile next to Kristoff's empty chair. I want someone to ask where he is, I want someone to force the truth out of Hans, but no one cares about the ice farmer of common birth enough to notice. It troubles me too think that no one will care until I am gone. In the coming months I am too become a spectacle of life and the future monarchy, and no one will care that Kristoff hasn't been to a meal in weeks.
Talking does not feel smart, talking might draw attention to me. The dignitary seems quite pleased that his story is receiving such undivided attention and I have no desire to put an end to it. So I remain quite. I stare in to my plate, daring several bites when my stomach feels calm enough to not revolt.
The food is bland, but I eat it anyway. It is a distraction, something to focus on while I wait out the crowd. I need to eat anyway. It is not as if I could start fast now, not with the need to eat for not only myself, but for my son as well. My chest tightens and I find the food much harder to swallow now. I do not like the thought of a child inside of me. It feels strange and frightening, and even more so knowing that it is Hanses. I did not ask for this, I did not want this. Hans forced me in to this situation.
I do let my face fall. I keep my eyes trained to my food; it is safe to do so. I reach for my goblet and welcome the additional distraction of water. Do not look at Hans. I cannot look at Hans. I can feel his eyes on me, I do not know when he turned from the dignitary to me, but I know he did. If I look at him he will know the truth. I do not know how, but I am sure he will find it in my eyes.
Food, I stare at my food and wait out the world.
The world soon relents and I am able to escape. I ignore the eyes that follow me as I leave; I pretend I do not know that Hans is watching me. I pretend that I am not scared. I convince myself that he will not leave the hall several minutes after me; I convince myself that he will not look for me, and I pray that he will not track me down.
I pass through the door with Anna in quick succession. "It stopped raining." I do not know why I feel the need to mention what I am sure Anna has already noticed. It must be the silence, or the knowledge that Hans is not far behind us.
"It can't rain forever."
I wish it could. It could become the background noise of my life; it could fill the cracks and distract me from terror. Olaf and Anna are right though. It cannot rain forever. So with that knowledge dancing in the front of my mind I listen for footsteps other than Anna's and mine.
"Elsa." Anna says. "I need to know who else is on that boat."
She must know that I cannot tell her. She must know that the castle is not safe for far more reasons than just Hans. I look for guards, determined to find somewhere safe where I do not have to worry about my traitorous sentry. The corridor is free from prying eyes, but it still does not feel safe. I have heard some say the walls have eyes, and now I believe them. Escape feels so limited, even when I am alone, save for Anna, and I know that no guard lurks behind the coming corners I am still reluctant to speak.
"Anna, you know that I can't tell you." I try to explain.
"Elsa, you have to stop, just please stop. You can't do this alone, you can't. No one could." Anna is right, of course she is, but I have convinced myself so deeply that this is my fault and, therefore, my problem. "I just want to help you, and I need to know how Hans is making you do this..."
What she means when she says "this" is all too clear. She wants to know what is so great that I would surrender our country and bring an unwanted child in to the world.
I survey the hallways again, adopting the nervous and twitchy habit of checking over my shoulder. Do I dare tell Anna the truth, could I end it all in this corridor. Could she handle knowing the truth? I work my jaw, pushing it up, down, and all around. It is as if the truth will be heavier and larger than all other words.
Anna pushes further. "Elsa, I have a right to know the truth. You lie to everyone, please don't lie to me. You tried to keep secrets once and that didn't turn out well. Please just tell me the truth."
Perhaps that is why the truth feels so difficult. I have spent so long knowing secrets that I mustn't tell. Could I even speak the words to be honest, would my body let go of what it seems to consider my last defense. Could I fight the urge long enough to be honest, do I want too?
"Anna." I will tell her. This is no different from confessing to her sleeping form. "I-."
"There you are sweetie." A voice booms across the hall; a voice that I know too well, the voice which triggers a flood of memories, none of them good. "I've been looking for you, you ran out of lunch so fast we didn't get a chance to chat." Hans says.
Anna and I freeze, all thoughts of confession and safety shattered by the sharpness of Hanses voice. He has a purpose, he intends to achieve something and I worry that I will not be able to fend as well as I did last time.
"Ah, yes, sisters chatting, nothing quite like family is there?" I catch the split second glare that I get from Hans as he says the word family; he is threatening that which he still has in his possession.
"No, there isn't" Anna agrees rather harshly with Hans, her dislike prominent in her tone.
"Tut tut, such a tiny princess with such a big attitude." Hans strolls toward me, disregarding Anna. "You best leave me and your sister to be, we have business to attend to."
"NO." Anna shouts. "Don't you dare go near her!" She is marching toward Hans, her 'big attitude' put on display with her tone and her brash shouting. "I will not have you lay one finger on my sister. She's done with you and so am I."
I worry that history will repeat itself and that Hans will so find Anna fist colliding with his face. I intervene before anything so drastic happens. "You really should go." Anna's energy feeds my words, gives me the courage to bluntly tell this man "no" and to know that I will stand by it with everything I have.
"And what can you do to make me listen to one word that comes out of your mouth." I can see the quiver in Hanses brow, and the tremor in his hands that tells me I need do much less than I thought now that I have displayed the more extreme and volatile end of my focused rage.
"You know what I can do, and you know what I will do when someone I love is at stake" I both threaten and promise Hans that I will protect my sister and my mother. In order to protect Anna I need Hans away from us, and in order to protect my mother I need to remove Hans is the least violent way possible.
He backs away from Anna and me, not with unsteady feet, but not with footing that looks strong or steady. He is nervous now; he has discovered that I have a breaking point. He knows that pushing me too far is not fun and is in fact rather dangerous. I have started to hate myself the tiniest bit less and I am all the more daring for it.
"Elsa." Anna dares break the silence several drawn out moments after Hans has turned the corner. "You're shaking." I look down at my hands to find that Anna is right. They jitter about casting curls of frost through the air and sending flakes of snow to the ground.
I let a mumble of sorts fall from my mouth and then I turn my hands in to tight fists. My eyes shut out the world and I take in the blackness of my eye lids. As if the never-ending black may hold the answers I feel slipping away from me, the answers I am convinced lay with Hans and my mother.
The blackness falls away and I take in the world once again, a world currently occupied largely by a worried Anna. "You know you can't let him near you. He might hurt it." Her eyes flit to my stomach and I am reminded of yet another thing to lie awake worrying about. So many dark thoughts fill my head when the stars come out, and now I have to worry for my son, my son that I will never get to love.
"You can't call it 'it'." I do not know what it bothers me so to hear Anna say 'it', but my shoulders clench and I want to shout over the words as not to hear it. It stings as an insult would.
"If not 'it' then what?" Anna asks.
"Anything else, just not 'it' he doesn't feel like an 'it'." I try to explain why it irritates me so.
"He?" Anna's eyebrows rise in question. "How could you possibly know that?"
"I don't, 'he' just feels better than 'it'.
"Ok. Hans might hurt him." Anna relents.
"I know."
"And what do you intend to do about this?" Anna's prompts.
"I don't know."
Anna looks remarkably irritated by my lack of knowing. I do wish I did know, but knowing seems far too hard right now. To know would be to feel safe and sure in what I want, both of which I am not. "How can you not know? How do you not have an end in mind? Elsa, Hans can't do this forever, nothing about this situation is sustainable."
She sounds as desperate as I feel. I want her to have the answer and she wants me to have it. "I know. Anna, believe me, I know. I know that I am being useless. I know that none of this makes sense to you, but please know that this doesn't make any sense to me either." My breath comes in a quick series of gasps. "I want this too all be over and pushed away just as much as you do, but you can run, none of these problems will follow you. I cannot run, no matter how fast, or far, I run I cannot outrun my son, or the obligation Hans has me tied up in."
"What obligations?" Anna breaks and stands directly in front of me. "Just tell me. There is no reason not to tell me."
"Yes there is." I am shouting, shouting with everything I have, and needing Anna to understand. "You would hate me again!"
This causes Anna to stumble. "Again?" The question is meek. "Again? Elsa, how could you… How could you say that?" She takes several paces and ends up standing in front of a window. "I'm your sister." She brings her hand ever so slowly to the glass pane keeping the weather from invading the hall. The heavy rain clouds of earlier have rolled across to the horizon. "I thought you hated me. You must know how it looked from my perspective. Elsa, you wouldn't utter a word, not to me. Mum and Dad, they got to go inside your room, not often, but it was enough. It was all enough to get the clear message that you didn't want me. That you hated me." She leans her forehead to the glass, taking in the smooth chilled texture with a newly forming smile and ignoring the few tears that are rolling across her cheeks. "I have never hated you, not now, not then."
The things I want to say do not come; the words that would work simply do not exist. I have been ignorant, I have forgotten Anna. This was all for her and I forgot her. I muster up what little courage I have, and move my feet. I come to stand next to Anna, still trying and still failing to find words.
It does not matter though, for Anna takes my waist in her arms and pulls me in to a hug. I stand startled for a quick moment, but then wrap my arms tight around Anna. I close my fists against the fabric of her dress, secure in her and that she is real and that she is safe. I let her bury her face in my chest, I let her block out the confusion and chaos of the world.
I squeeze my eyes shut and push my nose against the top of her head, reveling in the hair that tickles my face. In this second, this fleeting moment of perfection, I am not worried about losing control; I am not worried about Hans and what he may do. I am not worried about escaping my future. I am content in the pocket of perfection. I am content with world and all it may offer me. Nothing seems too much for me to deal with if I know that my sister is standing by me.
We stand interlocked and breathing as one for what I am convince is hours. I am sure we will have to release one another, but I do not want to, so I shall cling tight to Anna for longer yet.
The sisters are a little bit of a mess, don't worry though, next chapter will see them pull themselves back together (sorta).
Leave a review and let me know what you thought. I'll have the next chapter out on the 11th.
-Whovian123
Yulissab432: Thank you, and there is plenty more to come.
The Pianist's Touch: I touched on that in this chapter briefly, but short answer would be, she isn't sure. It's just what Hans is demanding. The thought of not giving him what he want scares Elsa, so she dubs her child a "he."
BloomingRoze: Thank you very much. I suppose he would declare a miscarriage and kill the child. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
Aggregate Dragon: Aww. Thank you.
Loridhhp: Thank you. Yes, I think Anna is also very much clinging to Elsa in hopes of comfort along with answers. Without each other I am sure neither would be sane.
Phill: Thank you. And now you have to wait five days between chapters. Catching up is always bitter sweet.