1845, Arendelle
Elsa can't quite put her finger on when things started changing between them, or if they ever actually started changing at all. It's possible, even probable, that on Anna's end everything is the same, and that Elsa's just inventing nonsense out of thin air. Maybe all those years in near-isolation caused her to lose her mind, and now Arendelle is stuck with a mad queen who can't stop thinking about her sister.
She blinks the sleep out of her eyes. It's a beautiful, clear summer night; her desk in her study faces a floor-to-ceiling window that opens onto a balcony, and when she looks up from her papers she can see scatterings of stars, tiny white pinpricks of light winking back at her. Anna's been asking her to go stargazing, and she keeps putting it off; now, she finds herself tempted to throw her work into the fire, take Anna's hand, and declare herself beholden to Anna's will for the night.
As it stands, Anna sits perched on the edge of her desk, legs crossed and swinging in the air, the hem of her dress fluttering up to reveal the bone of her ankle. She chews thoughtfully on the end of a fountain pen for a moment before scribbling something on the parchment she's holding. "Is this everything?" she says, then turns to look at the fresh stack of papers Elsa's just hauled to the desk. "Oh no."
"Oh, yes."
"God, I'm tired," Anna says. "Come to bed?"
"Not yet." Elsa conjures a bit of ice to press to the back of her neck, something she's always done to help herself stay alert during late-night work sessions. "You can always just go without me, you know."
Elsa knows, or hopes, that she won't. They haven't slept apart in years. Anna waits up for her, without fail, every night; it's turned into an unspoken rule of sorts, a ritual, a performance of this specific way in which they can care for each other: you and me, together, always. She knows this. But it still sends a secret thrill through her every time it's confirmed that Anna won't sleep without her.
"It's getting late," Anna says, her tone softening. She sidles around the corner of Elsa's desk, narrow hips shifting in her green dress, and slides into Elsa's lap, wraps her arms around her neck and shoulders, smiles that sweet little Anna-smile that's all the more enchanting this close.
This. This is what's different. The contact, the touching, the way Anna can't seem to keep her damn hands to herself. It isn't a bad thing; if it'd been anybody else, Elsa couldn't have tolerated it, but it fills her with a slow-burning warmth to know Anna has any desire to be near her. The more comfortable they get around each other, the closer Anna has to be. The warmth of her skin is like a drug, laudanum in Elsa's veins, a sweet and languorous high that pulses through her bloodstream and leaves her dizzy.
Anna tilts her head so that her forehead rests against Elsa's temple. "Come to bed," she says again, whispers it this time, hot breath fanning over Elsa's ear, making her shiver.
It's been a long time since the Thaw. She had thought it would go away with time, this nameless longing; she'd figured it was just a product of their long separation. They had spent thirteen years apart, after all, and all she'd had of Anna was rose-tinted memories and Anna's daily knocking at her door, evidence of her absurdly steadfast devotion. It was only natural that, once they were reunited, Elsa found herself wishing she never had to leave Anna's side, craving her embrace and her scent and her secret smiles.
Much to Elsa's chagrin, it has only gotten worse. Stronger. Harder to ignore. And…different.
She sets her pen down with a groan. Anna knows she can't say no to her. "You're incorrigible, you know that?"
"It's one of my best qualities," Anna singsongs. She hops off Elsa's lap and extends a hand to her, pulling her off her chair with more force than necessary. Elsa's wrist burns where Anna's fingers encircle it.
The halls are silent save for the crackling of the candles in their wall-mounts; it must be later than she realized. They walk the long path from the study to Elsa's room (there's truly no reason for this castle to be this damn big, she thinks), talking about nothing, giggling behind their hands to mask the sound.
"So," Elsa says, when they've finally reached her room. "How are wedding preparations going?"
She swallows past the lump that arises in her throat whenever she thinks of it. She has always known that Anna won't, can't (shouldn't) be hers forever – it's just that reality is coming up on them much quicker than she would like.
But it's happening, so Elsa might as well get used to it.
"Oh, just fine. I mean, it's still five months away," Anna says. "Kristoff's freaking out already, so I'm a little concerned for him, but I'm good."
"Good. You're not…nervous, at all?"
"Mmm, not really." She sits behind Elsa on the bed and runs her fingers through her braid, Elsa melting the icy pins that keep it together so that Anna can brush it out. "I mean, not much is gonna change, is it? It's not like I'm marrying some prince from far away. I'll stay in the castle, and Kristoff already lives here anyway. I guess the only difference is we'll sleep in the same room. Not that we don't already –" She stops and clears her throat awkwardly. "Um. The point is, things won't really change."
"You won't be able to sleep in here anymore," Elsa says, in a quiet, small voice that she barely recognizes as her own. She didn't really mean to voice the thought. It's ridiculous, and it makes her sound like a needy child.
But.
"Aw, Elsa," Anna says. "There's no rule saying I can't sometimes! We can have, like, little sleepovers. Whenever you want!"
"It won't be the same," she mumbles. She can't say what she really means, because it's awful and it'd sound so, so strange. I don't want to stop being the most important person in your life. I don't want to lose you even a little bit.
Anna's fingers go still. Elsa feels the mattress shift underneath her, and then Anna's arms are wrapped around her midriff, her lips peppering kisses into her hair.
"Nothing's going to change, especially between us," she says. "I promise."
"How can you promise that? How do you know?"
"Because you're the best person I know, and I love you, and that'll never change," Anna says. "And I'll never love anyone else more than I love you."
Elsa believes her.
xxx
It's a warm, windy night, the kind that signals the start of summer's transition into autumn and brings with it the promise of falling leaves and fireplaces, the kind where the air itself seems to be woven from wishes and dreams. They lie on their backs in a field somewhere a few miles out from the castle – Anna had made them walk out there, refusing to just ride as Elsa had suggested because, as she put it, "I don't want to make the horses stay up that late" – on an itchy picnic blanket foraged from the depths of Anna's closet.
"This one is Orion's belt," Elsa says, pointing. She has a collection of astronomy textbooks gathering dust somewhere at the back of a bookshelf; she'd skimmed back through them in preparation for tonight, hoping, foolishly, that Anna might be impressed with her knowledge.
"I think it's more fun to make up names for them," Anna says.
"Hmm. Give me an example."
"Okay, umm…" She points at a little cluster of stars to the west that gleams and winks at them from above. "That right there. I'll call that one Elsa."
"Why's that?"
"Because it's the prettiest one up there," Anna says. Even in the dim light of the moon, Elsa can see her roguish wink, and a guilty blush crawls up her cheeks.
"Well, then." She giggles. "It's a good thing you're not a prince, or all the eligible ladies of Arendelle would be in serious trouble."
"I wouldn't go for just any Arendellian woman," Anna says. "I'd woo a princess from somewhere else. Somewhere fancy."
"Awfully high standards for someone set to marry a man who talks to reindeer."
Anna laughs. "You got me there."
Lying side-by-side on the small blanket, their shoulders brushing each other's, Elsa thinks: if life could be like this forever, just her and Anna taking on the world, she wouldn't want for anything else ever again. She's got all she needs right here, wrapped up in this magnetic firecracker of a girl.
It's a thought that's plagued her again and again over the past three years. It's a thought that she needs to disabuse herself of as soon as possible, because Anna has always been destined for greater things, greater loves, than the paltry affections Elsa has to offer her.
"Your turn," Anna says.
Elsa squints hard at the sky for a long while, trying to find something new to give her own name to, but she's too preoccupied to make use of her imagination.
"Do you see those two lines, there? The ones that look like they're connected?"
Anna aims her index finger at the sky and looks to Elsa. "Show me."
Elsa closes her hand over Anna's, weaving her fingers through the spaces between Anna's knuckles, and guides her in tracing out the constellation.
"Oh! Yeah, I see it now."
"That's Gemini," Elsa says. "The twins. You remember the story of Castor and Pollux? From our classics lessons?"
Anna lowers her hand and turns onto her side. "You know I never paid attention." She scoots over and closes the little distance that Elsa had left between them, tucking her head beneath Elsa's chin and resting her arm around Elsa's midsection. Elsa shivers. "Remind me."
"Well, Castor and Pollux were twins – or maybe half-brothers? I don't remember the details. They were children of Zeus, I think. The point is, they loved each other very much and were said to be inseparable –"
"Sounds familiar."
"Let me finish the story before you start comparing them to us," Elsa says, bopping Anna on the nose. "As the myth goes, Castor was killed in a dispute, and Pollux begged Zeus to let him give up part of his own immortality to share with his brother. So Zeus allowed them to spend half their time in the underworld and half their time in the heavens." She presses a kiss to the top of Anna's head. "In some versions of the story, they became the constellation Gemini. Together for eternity."
Anna whistles, long and low. "That's heavy."
"Yeah," Elsa says. She regrets bringing it up, a little. Now all she can think about is herself and Anna, up in the heavens, by each other's side forever.
For a few minutes, they lay in silence. Elsa brings one arm up around Anna's shoulders, and Anna curls up tighter against her, and it gives her the courage to wrap her other arm around Anna as well. They hold each other and look up at the sky, at the lights of the village in the distance, breathing steadily and in sync.
"Okay, this is going to sound weird," Anna says, "but do you ever wish you could just…run away?"
"I have run away, remember? It's not all it's cracked up to be."
Anna snorts. "That's not what I meant. I mean, like..." She sighs. "I dunno. Don't you ever get tired of all this royalty stuff? Having to act a certain way and live a certain kind of life? Especially in a place like Arendelle, where there's, like, a few hundred people total, and everyone's super invested in your business?"
"What's this about?" Elsa says. She tries to sit up, because it seems like Anna is getting at something more serious, but Anna clutches at the collar of her coat and keeps her close.
"I guess I just – I don't know. It's hard being a princess."
"Try being a queen."
"Oh, shut up," Anna says. "Just humor me for a minute. If you could leave all this behind and go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"
Elsa considers it. "France, I think. Paris. It's the home of philosophy, science, math, politics. I'd love to just sit in cafes and read and argue all day. What about you?"
"Mmm. Maybe America? I've always wanted to see it, and it seems so, like…free? Like, brave new world and all, y'know? But mostly I'd want to go wherever you'd go."
"Not Kristoff?" Elsa asks, doing her best to tamp down the hopeful edge to her question.
"Well, we'd take him along, obviously." Anna sighs. "Doesn't matter, anyway. Obviously we're not going to be running off to Paris or America anytime soon."
"In another life, maybe," Elsa says, closing her eyes.
"In another life," Anna says.
xxx
In her dreams, she stands by the fjord with Anna by her side. The spray from the nearby waterfall cools their faces, and the world is silent and seemingly empty save for the two of them. Anna takes her hand. She mumbles something that Elsa can't quite make out, and then pulls her closer, closer, too close, until they are facing each other and standing so close their noses could touch. Anna's eyes are half-lidded, and they flutter shut as she moves in, rests her forehead against Elsa's, cups her cheek with her hand, shifts so that their stomachs press together...
At this point in the dream, Elsa always wakes up. She doesn't know what is supposed to happen after that point, and she's not sure she wants to find out. She wakes up with sweaty palms and a hard-beating heart.
xxx
"Your Majesty," Gerda says, startling Elsa out of the pages of The Wealth of Nations, which lies open across her lap in what she'd thought was a private corner of the library. She's not sure how Gerda found her here. She'll have to find a new spot for when she wants to be alone. Something a bit more secluded.
"Good afternoon, Gerda," she says. "What can I do for you?"
"It's Princess Anna." When Elsa drops her book in her haste to stand, she quickly adds, "Everything is okay. She just wanted to see you. She's in her dressing room."
Right. The fitting is today. She thought she'd forgotten, but maybe some part of her had remembered and led her to spend half the day squirreled away with no one but Adam Smith to keep her company. But it is Anna, after all, and it's her wedding dress. Of course she'd want Elsa to take a look at it before everything is finalized.
Her hands shake a little as she walks to Anna's room. She's not sure why. She flexes them and allows little tendrils of snow to escape from them, a paltry pressure-release valve in the face of her sudden, inexplicable nerves.
When she steps into the dressing room, it's all she can do to not audibly gasp.
The dress is a pearl-white that is only made more beautiful because of the contrast it strikes with all the color that is Anna: tanned skin, bright teal eyes, and fiery hair. It has a wide neckline that displays Anna's sinfully sharp collarbones and the freckles scattered across her shoulders. The fabric drapes almost loosely across her body, somehow making her curves all the more alluring for what it doesn't show, except at the waist, where it narrows a bit, hugging Anna's frame, before flaring again at the hips. The train is made of a delicate, lacy material - one misstep and it'll tear, Elsa's sure, so Anna will have to practice walking down the aisle enough that there's no risk of tripping on the day itself.
Her sister is beautiful, so naturally elegant that it makes her breath catch in her throat. Elsa wants to cry.
Anna clears her throat, and Elsa remembers that she hasn't said anything yet, and that she is surrounded by a roomful of people giving her some very expectant looks that are sure to turn confused if she keeps staring like this.
"Wow," she says.
"Is that a good wow or a bad wow?" Anna tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Good wow, definitely," Elsa says. She steps a little closer. She feels delirious. "Anna, I – you look beautiful."
For a moment, Anna just smiles at her. Then, perhaps realizing that they're still in the presence of the tailor and her assistants, she says, "Could I have a moment alone with my sister, please?"
"Of course, Your Highness," the tailor says with a nervous curtsy. She's young, Elsa notes, as she scurries out of the room, but obviously talented. She'll have to remember to hire her as the family's official tailor, or whatever title comes closest to that position.
"Now you can tell me what you really think," Anna says. She twirls, and the bottom half of the dress flutters and spins.
"That was what I really think. Wow," Elsa says. "Kristoff is going to faint when he sees you."
"Wouldn't that be something? Swooning at the altar."
"The bishop will have to catch him."
Anna giggles. "Wait, there's one more thing." She bends to pick something up, then says, "Oh, but close your eyes first!"
"Fine," Elsa says, bemused.
Anna fiddles with something for a moment before saying, "Okay, you can look."
She opens her eyes to see Anna blinking up at her, teal eyes glowing, through the gauzy shimmer of an intricate white veil that falls to her waist. The translucence of the fabric lends her face an ethereal, hazy quality; it makes her look like a mirage or a vision of an angel, one descended to earth just to bring a little piece of heaven into Elsa's life, to make her holy just by touching her.
"God," Elsa says.
"I didn't know if it was tacky or not," Anna says shyly. "It's not too much, is it?"
"Definitely not," Elsa says. With both hands, as if in a trance, she lifts the veil off Anna's face. Gently, tenderly, she pushes it up and back, revealing the full depth and beauty of those eyes, of that smile, the one directed so completely toward Elsa right now, soft and trusting and fervent and fragile.
Elsa brushes Anna's bangs off her face and runs her knuckles along her cheekbone. She half-expects Anna to pull away, maybe with an awkward chuckle at how strange she's acting, but Anna leans into the touch without so much as glancing away.
"I'm so proud of you," Elsa whispers, her voice suddenly thick. "The person you've become. I don't know how you managed to grow into someone so incredible, considering our childhood and, well, me –" She chokes out a wet laugh as Anna purses her lips and gives a little shake of her head. "You know what I mean. I wish…I wish I could have been there for you. Growing up, I mean."
"Hey, hey," Anna says, interrupting what is quickly turning into a teary ramble. "None of that, okay? We're past all that."
"I know. It's just been on my mind lately."
Lately, it has become painfully clear that Anna and her wellbeing have always been the keystone of her existence, the central tenet of her purpose. Everything about her begins and ends with Anna. Clearer still is the fact that Anna does not need her the same way. She has always known this, of course, but the impending marriage will put it into more concrete terms, bound by laws and vows and religious oaths.
"What's important is you're here now," Anna says. She takes a step closer, then another – slowly, rhythmically, almost like a wedding march – until they are close enough that their noses could touch with just a tilt of Elsa's head. "We're here now. Together."
Elsa nods.
"It's you and me, right? Always."
"Always," Elsa repeats, entranced.
xxx
For so long, Anna's wedding has seemed like an abstract eventuality, a far-away fantasy that looms over Elsa but poses no threat of actually coming to pass, until suddenly it's the night before and the two of them are huddled together in Anna's bedroom, giggling and talking like nothing is different while Elsa tries to quell her growing dread. It's late and the fire has died down, leaving only a few candles to light the room.
"I'm so happy," Anna sighs. She takes a chocolate from the array spread out on a tray before them – Elsa had them specially made for Anna – and pops it into her mouth. The smile on her face is enough to keep the streets of Arendelle lit for centuries, Elsa's sure.
"I'm happy for you," she says, and it's true; seeing Anna this buoyant is worth having to grapple with whatever green-eyed monster seems to have sunk its claws into her. "You deserve every bit of tomorrow, Anna."
"I wasn't even talking about tomorrow, really."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's just – okay, you're too far away from me right now. C'mere."
Anna pats the spot right next to her and motions for Elsa, who has been maintaining a studied distance from her, to come closer. (Here is part of the problem: it is so damn hard to stay away from Anna, especially when their bodies fit together so perfectly, like they were made to hold each other.) Elsa leans against the headboard next to Anna and lets her head fall onto her shoulder. Anna wraps both arms around her waist and her heartbeat quickens so suddenly she's almost afraid Anna can feel it thudding against her, as loud and urgent as footsteps.
"It's just…" Anna continues, "you, I guess. Or…us. This," she says, gesturing between the two of them. "Before your coronation I would've never, in a million years, thought this could ever be possible."
"What do you mean, 'this'?"
"Just getting to be together. Getting to really know you. You letting me love you, and – and I don't know, being loved in return."
Something is different about tonight. Elsa can feel it. She's not sure if it's in the way Anna's looking at her, eyes flashing hot and dark in the flickering firelight, or the nature of her words themselves, but she can feel it. Something has shifted between them.
She thinks back to all those months ago, when she'd first managed to put words to her worry that things would change between them after Anna's marriage. Anna had told her what she'd wanted to hear: that no, nothing would change, that no one could take Elsa's place in her life. She wonders if Anna still feels the same way; she almost asks, but thinks better of it. It's not Anna's job to make Elsa feel better every time her mind invents a new, ridiculous fear for her to fixate on.
So she doesn't mention it. This is their night, maybe the last night they'll have to themselves like this before Anna's priorities shift.
"I know what you mean," Elsa says. "This is all I've ever really wanted. You know, it's funny – everything I did, everything I ever put myself through, it was always for you, nothing else. But I never imagined I would actually ever get to be with you like this."
"Really?" Anna says quietly. "Even after your coronation? What did you think was going to happen?"
"I don't know." She laughs, because really – what had she been expecting? "I assumed the gates would open and you would find a prince or something and…go be happy somewhere else."
"Without you?"
"Yes," Elsa says, without hesitation. "You always had so much life in you. It never occurred to me that I actually had anything to offer you. You just…had all the love in the world to give, and no one to direct it at for so long." She smiles ruefully. "I was prepared to do whatever I had to do to ensure you got to be safe from me for the rest of your life."
Anna presses a kiss to the top of Elsa's head. "Y'know, you might be the smarter one, but you sure can be dumb sometimes."
Elsa laughs. "Even now," she says, "if I believed that that was what it took to protect you, I would do it in a heartbeat. Without question." She waits, expecting Anna to playfully chide her again for being dramatic, but Anna is still and silent beside her.
"Don't say things like that," she says, her voice suddenly quiet and serious. She takes Elsa's hand in her own, strokes the palm of it with her thumb, sending goosebumps all up and down Elsa's arm. "You know I could never be happy without you."
As a matter of fact, she wants to say, I don't know that at all. "Mmm," she says instead. She buries her nose in the crook of Anna's neck, closing her eyes and trying to etch this moment into her memory, but Anna hooks a finger under her chin and tilts her head up until they're making eye contact.
"Elsa," she says. (No one else has ever said her name the way Anna does: delicately, like it is so fragile it might break if not handled with enough care.) "I'm being serious."
All of the candles have gone out, save for the one on Anna's nightstand. Elsa isn't sure if she's responsible for that; these days, she rarely loses control of her powers, but she can still cause the occasional stray breeze if she's not paying attention. The light from the single flame dances across the planes of Anna's face, throwing her features into sharp relief. Her eyes smolder with something unnamable, eyebrows set in a serious furrow, hair loose and hanging around her face, cascading down her shoulders. In the dim candlelight, she looks more beautiful than ever. Elsa's heart leaps.
Anna's hand is still under her chin. She tips her head forward until their foreheads are touching, Anna's warmth a salve to the coolness of her own skin, the tips of their noses just barely brushing.
"Anna?" Elsa whispers, because although they have shared moments like this in the past, the way Anna's caressing Elsa's cheek and looking at her, so intently and knowingly she feels like she's being stripped bare, makes this particular moment feel…different.
"Shh," Anna says. Her breath is hot against Elsa's mouth.
She shivers, mute, and lets her eyes flutter shut. So she doesn't see Anna's eyes close in unison, doesn't see the way she parts her lips a little and leans in just a bit, only feels: Anna's fingers threading through her hair to pull her closer, her other hand gripping her waist.
Whether it's delirium brought on by being this close to Anna, drunk on the scent of Anna's lavender soap and the curve of her body beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown, or simply an inability to care about resisting anymore, Elsa doesn't know; whatever it is, it feels like she no longer has any control over her own actions.
Like a marionette on strings, propelled by an unseen force, she closes the distance between them and captures Anna's lips in her own. It's a gentle kiss. Hesitant. Anna tastes of the berries they'd just shared at dessert, sweet and tangy and so unmistakably Anna. It's everything she's ever imagined, but more, better somehow; Anna is real and alive and there with her, if only for this brief moment. It only takes a second for Elsa to come to her senses and pull away, fully expecting to see any number of things reflected in Anna's eyes: confusion, disgust, hate.
What she doesn't expect is for Anna to pull her in again and kiss her in earnest.
I'm dreaming, Elsa thinks.
She has to be dreaming. Or dying, perhaps, and this blissful moment is just the final fantasy of a fevered mind. What other explanation could there be for all of her wildest, most secret dreams coming true in just a moment, every silent sinful desire she'd been too afraid of to voice even to herself laid bare in front of her?
Anna breaks the kiss after just a moment, pulling away and leaving Elsa feeling like she's drowning.
"Elsa," Anna mumbles.
"I love you," Elsa says wetly, and when their lips meet again the kiss tastes of salt and tears. Elsa kisses Anna fervently; she's wanted this for too long to be self-conscious about it, and she doesn't think she'll ever get to do it again, and she still isn't convinced it's real. She kisses Anna with the force of years and years of unspoken longing, bottled up and kept in the dark for so long that now it fizzes and sparks and threatens to boil over into something she can't control, until Anna separates them with a gentle push at her shoulders.
Elsa keeps her eyes closed, just rests her forehead against Anna's. This is far more complicated than the easy sweetness of a kiss, she knows, and Anna is marrying Kristoff in the morning, and whatever this was between them can never, ever, go any further, and besides, Anna is probably only acting strangely due to pre-wedding jitters, or something like that.
But Elsa can allow herself to have a moment to pretend.
"Anna," Elsa starts, "I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, I – "
"Hey, no, shh," Anna says. "Tomorrow. For now let's just go to bed."
xxx
Tomorrow, it turns out, doesn't quite pan out the way Elsa wants it to.
The wedding is beautiful, of course, but Elsa spends most of it in a daze of sorts, watching the day's proceedings as if from underwater. She walks Anna down the aisle in lieu of their father, as she'd promised months before, but Anna's grip on her arm is the only thing keeping her anchored to the present moment. Without her – when she's finally up on the altar, or dancing with Kristoff at the reception – Elsa comes unmoored, a ship in search of its shore, her mind wandering numbly.
They never do get a chance to talk about things. The day is occupied with last-minute preparations, welcoming guests, getting Anna ready, making small-talk with visiting nobles at the reception, and countless other little errands that tick away their time together until finally Anna and Kristoff are climbing into a carriage, off to the little mountainside chalet where they'll be spending their honeymoon.
But there are a few moments, throughout the course of the day, when Elsa thinks she spots Anna throwing her a sad glance over Kristoff's shoulder, or when she hears an undercurrent of want hiding behind Anna's dinnertime conversation.
Foolish, she thinks. You're imagining things.
The next few days pass without incident. Elsa buries herself in her work; when the work runs out, she makes more for herself, studying tomes from the library that belch clouds of dust at her when she pulls them down from the shelves. Idle moments find her thoughts wandering to Anna: the question of what their last night together meant, if anything, and how, exactly, Elsa can disentangle herself from this bramble of feelings. (Because that's what she has to do; she knows it as plainly as she knows her love for Anna.)
Four days after the wedding, everything changes so suddenly and violently, it feels as though Elsa has left her own reality and entered a parallel universe where nothing makes sense.
When the nightmare starts, she's up in her study, the one where her desk faces the window that looks out onto the main thoroughfare to the castle. It's an unseasonably foggy morning; the sun still isn't fully up, and the clouds cling tight to the ground, making the light from the gas-lamps look like orbs of fire. Still, even from the second-floor study, Elsa can make out something strange: Kristoff and Anna's carriage, on its way back a week too early.
Something's wrong. She knows it without even having to really know.
She tries to maintain some semblance of composure as she makes her way to the gates, settling for a rapid clip down the stairs (why does this castle have so many damn stairs, anyway? And whose idea was it to make them all spiral?) rather than a less-dignified sprint. She meets Kristoff at the door, looking pale and worried.
"Elsa, thank goodness," Kristoff says, and despite everything his presence is always reassuring somehow, an ally united with her in the common cause of loving Anna.
"You're back early," she says, trying and failing to tamp down her growing dread. "Is something wrong?"
"Yeah, it's, um – " he stammers. He's always so stoic, so sturdy and reliable, that seeing him visibly panic is jarring. "It's, ah, it's Anna."
Elsa's blood freezes in her veins. Anna. Her mind conjures up a never-ending list of all her worst fears, come to life: Anna injured, Anna suffering, Anna dead, each vision more nightmarish than the last.
Behind Kristoff, a couple of the castle guardsmen are clustered around the carriage, peeking inside, helping Anna out, and a crowd of servants has gathered. Elsa pushes past them, all queenly manners forgotten, until she reaches Anna.
"Oh, hey," Anna says weakly when she sees her. Her normally ruddy skin has a sickly pallor to it; when Elsa goes to grasp her hand, her skin is clammy, almost cold to the touch, but sweat is beading up on her forehead. Still, her smile upon seeing Elsa is as radiant as ever.
"What happened?" Elsa says. She shoos the guards away and puts an arm around Anna to help support her as they walk inside. "Are you ill? Did you eat something funny, or – or stay out in the cold for too long, maybe? What are you feeling?"
Anna rolls her eyes. "Knew you were gonna start mothering me as soon as I got back," she says through chattering teeth.
"I don't know what it is," Kristoff says. "Everything was fine, and then – just – yesterday she said she wasn't feeling great, and then today she woke up like…this."
"I can speak for myself, Kristoff," Anna grumbles, and Kristoff just smiles and shakes his head.
The two of them help Anna to her room; Kristoff has to carry her up the stairs, and it's a testament to how preoccupied Elsa is that she doesn't even register the familiar pang of jealousy she would otherwise have felt. He lays Anna on her bed and then stands uneasily next to Elsa, as if awaiting instruction.
"M'head hurts," Anna mumbles. "Could someone take the blankets off? It's so freaking hot in here."
Elsa and Kristoff exchange a look. The room is as chilly as the rest of the castle in winter.
"Kristoff, go fetch Dr. Ibsen, would you?" Elsa says.
"On it," Kristoff says, darting out and closing the door behind him.
Elsa kneels by Anna's bedside. "Tell me what's wrong, darling," she whispers, brushing Anna's sweat-soaked bangs off her forehead.
"I just feel tired, really," Anna says. Her eyes are half-lidded. "And hot. Actually, c-could you help me with that? Just cool me down a little?"
"I don't know if that's a good idea," she says. She presses her palm to Anna's forehead, and Anna hisses with relief. "Anna, you're burning up."
"Keep your hand there, please," Anna says, and Elsa can't find it in her to say no.
Dr. Ibsen comes in, takes a look at Anna while Kristoff and Elsa pace anxiously. He fixes them with grim looks, tells them something vague about not being able to tell what this is, about mysterious ailments that come and go with nothing more than some medicine to try to bring the fever down. He gives Anna something to drink and a few empty, reassuring words that do nothing to make Elsa feel better.
That night, it's Elsa who Anna asks to spend the night with her, not Kristoff. She cradles Anna in her arms as she sweats and shivers and sighs.
"I can tell you're worrying yourself sick," Anna says. "No pun intended."
"I hate seeing you in pain," Elsa says.
"I know. But it'll be fine, Elsa. It's probably just one of those seasonal things, y'know. Changing weather and all that."
"Yeah," Elsa agrees, unconvinced.
Anna's too hot to fall asleep that night, though, so Elsa conjures up a miniature snowstorm to blanket the room in flurries and snowdrifts. "Wanna build a snowman?" she says, and feels Anna shake with laughter in her arms.
"Actually, yeah," Anna says, but she's too weak to really move, so Elsa uses her magic to make a tiny living snowman that immediately sprints to the edge of the bed and falls off. It makes Anna smile, so Elsa does it again, and again, and again, until there are hundreds of little snow people mulling about the room. When Anna finally falls asleep, Elsa closes her eyes and prays.
When Anna wakes next, it's well past noon and Dr. Ibsen is back in her room, accompanied by a few other royal physicians.
She looks up at Elsa, eyes wide, and says "How long was I out?"
The doctors all wear the same resigned looks. Elsa knows what they mean.
xxx
Anna's condition deteriorates rapidly; her fever climbs and climbs, and her complaints about being too hot quickly turn into chills and shivering.
(Anna doesn't say anything about Elsa's powers making it worse, of course, but Elsa sees the way her touch begins to send Anna's teeth chattering. It feels like an accusation, an indictment: witch, she thinks, it's you who's doing this to her, and the demons she thought she was done wrestling with suddenly seem to have returned. One night, after Anna has fallen asleep, she pulls her old gloves out of her chest in the attic and puts them on whenever she has to touch Anna.)
The doctors all say the same thing: they've never seen anything like this before, they don't know what's wrong, there's nothing to do but wait, and all Elsa can do is grit her teeth and sit by Anna's beside, day and night.
It takes a week. Seven days to the hour – it's early morning when she goes.
"Look, the sky's awake," Anna slurs, her eyes glassy and distant. Elsa just smiles and hopes Anna can't feel the sob she's choking back. Now is not the time for weakness – Anna needs her big sister. The northern lights dance in the sky outside, lending Anna's face a green, ghostly glow, and they lie there for what feels like hours, with Elsa holding tight every part of Anna she can grasp and hoping enough of Anna is still there to feel it.
Anna's eyes roll in her skull. Her eyelids flicker – closed, open, closed, open. Finally she fixes her gaze on Elsa's face. She whispers, plaintively, like a child, "Elsa?"
"I'm right here," Elsa mumbles. "I'm right here, Anna, I've got you. I love you." The words come out in a jumble, all at once, "I love you, it's okay, you're gonna be okay."
"Elsa," Anna says, and then she's gone.
xxx
There is a moment, every morning, when Elsa wakes up and forgets, looks groggily to the other side of the bed expecting to see Anna snoring and drooling next to her. Every morning, the empty space next to her brings her violently and cruelly back to reality, in which Anna is gone and everything is cold and empty and gray. And every day she has to wake up and get out of bed and meet with her council and do her work and continue to exist in a world in which everything is so wrong it feels as if, logically, the universe itself should be rent apart.
Three days after Anna's death, nearly out of her mind with grief, Elsa goes to see the trolls, and it's only then that she learns the full extent of what her powers have in store for her.
"Please," she begs Grand Pabbie, on her knees, her face buried in her hands, "please, let me die, tell me how, I can't – I've tried to – I can't do this without her and I don't know why I can't just – it should be me and not her and I don't know what to – " Her voice cuts off at a choked sob, and it's a testament to how far gone she is that she doesn't even spare athought to the indignity of crying in front of this many strangers.
"I'm so very sorry, Your Majesty," Pabbie says, his voice deep and grave. "I cannot begin to imagine the extent of your grief."
There's a moment of solemn silence as the rest of the trolls lower their heads to her, some murmuring words of sympathy. They had all loved Anna. Everyone had loved Anna. How could you not? To know her was to love her, and to Elsa, she was her North, her South, her East, her West, and now she is just gone, and Elsa is nothing without her. Anna had been the only person who had ever truly known her, who had ever loved her. Yes, she still has a kingdom, but if she's honest with herself she knows her subjects don't care about her. They fear her, nothing more and nothing less, but they don't care and they certainly have no semblance of love or respect for her beyond what her title gives her. That's what she'd always relied on Anna for, Anna who could navigate the village pubs with ease and Anna who listened to each and every townsperson who came to the castle with a grievance and Anna who shined brilliant as the sun, with Elsa merely a moon reflecting her light.
She grasps the ground with her hands, tearing out fistfuls of grass and not caring about how they freeze and shatter in her grip. "I can't live like this," she whispers, and Grand Pabbie takes her hand in his – cold flesh against cold stone – and tells her everything he knows. Tells her her soul must be one with ice and snow and wind and water, somehow, and that just as the elements persevere unchanged by the march of time, so too will she. He tells her she may never age past her twenty-six years, tells her not only does she have to make it through this life without Anna, but she'll be surviving a million lifetimes, alone and cold and unfeeling.
"What?" Elsa says. "No, I – no, that's impossible."
But then, as she looks desperately at him with no words other than please help me, he tells her something that will be her lifeline for the next two hundred-odd years.
"Listen to me, Elsa," Pabbie says. "There is much we do not know about your magic, but this much I am sure of: it is more powerful, and more mysterious, than anything I have ever encountered before. You already know that the cornerstone of your powers is love; it follows, then, that you and your sister are bound by forces much deeper than blood."
"I don't understand."
She doesn't understand all of what he tells her, but she understands this much – that Anna may not be gone forever, and that he doesn't know much about this magic but they may cross paths someday if fate wills it, and it's a lot of maybes but it has to be something because Elsa doesn't know how she's going to keep going on if she doesn't have at least this to hold on to.
"I cannot offer you much by way of material comfort," Pabbie finishes, "but from what I know of this type of magic, I suspect that this life and this death may not be the end for her."
"Thank you," she tells Pabbie before she leaves, and he fixes her with a look so sad she has to avert her eyes.
As soon as Elsa returns to the castle, she heads straight for the library, digging up the oldest, more arcane texts she can find about death. Most of what she reads is unclear, but the texts do mention rebirth, and souls bound by magic and love and all sorts of fanciful things that might otherwise have sounded like distant fantasies if it weren't for the fact that this is, really, her last hope.
She'll wait for Anna. If it takes a thousand years, if there's even the slightest chance in hell of some miracle that makes it possible to see that smile again, she'll wait for her.
After a few additional weeks of misery, Elsa abdicates. Maybe it's because she's mad with grief and love, but Arendelle holds nothing for her anymore, not when every room in that castle smells like Anna. She picks a regent – the smartest and most capable of her councilors – and then she packs whatever she can fit on her bag and just leaves.
Olaf's melted. Elsa guesses whatever magic held him together had as much to do with Anna as it did with her, and so she's not surprised when he withers away bit-by-bit until he's nothing but another memory of what she had and lost. Kristoff spends all his time in the stables with Sven and Elsa can't even bear to look at him. She knows she should talk to him, knows they're suffering through the same thing, but she can't bear to face anyone who knows exactly the weight of what she's lost.
She goes to Paris first. Then London, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, then smaller towns when she runs out of places that will make her heart scream for Anna. She spends the better part of a century flitting from place to place like this, and at some point the sharp spear of grief dulls to a steady throb, until she can recall the sound of Anna's laugh without curling into herself and sobbing until her chest feels hollow. Days bleed into weeks, weeks bleed into months and years and then, slowly, somehow, it becomes harder to remember – when it's been a hundred years since the last time Elsa saw Anna, she finds herself struggling to recall the exact teal shade of her eyes, and then it becomes a daily ritual to remind herself of everything she'd loved about Anna, a liturgy she repeats to keep herself sane.
The years go by like this. It's all empty save for the memories. Oh, she takes the occasional lover, studies at the world's best universities and works to fill her time, but Pabbie's words are all that echo in her mind, day in and day out. It's a terrible way to live, but Elsa knows she would do anything, anything, for the chance to see Anna again. She often used to think how she'd follow Anna to the ends of the earth. Following her across centuries and across lifetimes isn't that different, is it?
More years pass. Economies surge and collapse, a couple world wars go by, man lands on the moon, et cetera – it's all a cold, grey blur to Elsa.
Until one day – just about 150 years after Anna's death, which is how she still measures her time – she feels something.
It's subtle, at first. Just the faintest blush of something different, something in her world that's shifted. She ignores it as best as she can – she's never been one for intuition or gut feelings or any of that nonsense.
Resolutely, stubbornly, she keeps living as before. Running away has served her well enough in the past, she thinks; what's a couple more years spent ignoring her problems?
But it gets stronger. Blooms from the hint of a change to a feeling that settles in her veins and then rises, like hot air, till it feels like a jet stream buoying her heart. Ocean currents swirling, pulling, tugging at her bones, until she can't ignore it anymore. Because the feeling's warm, and it's pointing her to something – or, as she can't bear to let herself hope, someone.
A familiar mantra presents itself to her. Don't feel it, don't feel it, don't feel it, because feeling it means hope – hope for something too absurd to be possible.
But again and again, she thinks about what Pabbie said.
She moves to America. Just needed a change, she tells herself, and avoids acknowledging whatever it is her stomach's doing as her plane's wheels hit the tarmac in Cleveland.
Cleveland, Elsa thinks. She allows herself a smile at that thought. God, she must really still be lovesick if she's willing to haul herself to Ohio for –
No.
Still, even after all these years, she's still not strong enough to put her hopes into words. It would be too much, to have a concrete shape to what she thinks all this means, and then to be wrong.
It's enough to just live with this warmth. In America, the nameless, formless pull coalesces until it's something so strong it's almost tangible. It tells her she's where she's meant to be, and at this point she's too sold on the idea to put up anything more than cursory mental resistance. Damn rationality, damn reason, she's a woman who can make ice out of thin air, for god's sake – who is she to say this feeling in the pit of her gut doesn't mean anything?
And then – one day, some twenty-odd years later – she's having a moment to herself in her car when she looks up and she sees her. Anna.
Anna.
Then she tamps down her fluttering heart, thinks no no it's not possible, until the woman unleashes an unmistakable string of word vomit that's all too familiar, and Elsa knows she's already hopelessly, hopelessly lost to her.
