Warnings: descriptions of bodily injury from fire

Chapter 20: Invisible Touch

Anna knelt on the forest floor in the abandoned Northuldra camp, cradling Elsa in her arms, tears falling on her burned body. What had just happened? How was it possible that she saw Kristoff again after all these years? Did the evil… whatever he was? Did he find Kristoff and enslave him just to torture her?

She shook her head clear of the thoughts and the shock. The most important thing, the most important person in the world was in her arms right now and needed her help. Elsa. Her sister. Her love. Her life.

Carefully, Anna rested Elsa's head against her thighs while she pulled a slip of paper from her tunic. Blood from her sister's cracked, charred skin immediately began to stain her trousers as she looked at the scrawled, barely legible paper in the last light of the setting sun.

Sângele meu la sângele tău, inima mea la inima ta, viața mea la viața ta. Mă doare ca să te vindeci. Eu mor ca să trăiești.

The words made no sense to her. She didn't even recognize the language. What was it? Hungarian? Gypsy? Moldavian? Anna sobbed again in frustration. How was she supposed to use these powers, that mysterious necklace the Countess gave her, if she didn't even understand a word of the incantation?

Elsa's breath grew more shallow. Anna panicked. If she didn't do something, she'd lose her sister to the horrible injuries she'd suffered in battle. Anna closed her eyes. Maybe, just maybe, there was a memory that could teach her, the way Elsa could draw on memories of the past for her magic.

Seconds passed, and Anna felt nothing. No mysterious old man in a tower, no Northuldra in ancient clothing, nothing. A wail escaped her lips, echoing in the forest's cavernous emptiness. "Please, Elsa! Please! Don't- I can't lose you. I can't live without you! Please tell me- tell me what to do, how to fix this!" Anna looked up, her voice hoarse as her screams echoed in the woods. "Bruni! Gale! Nokk! Mother! ANYONE! Please- I don't- I can't… SOMEONE HELP ME!"

Anna collapsed atop her sister's form. Her breath hitched, a final sob escaping her. Something inside her shifted, as though a door, long closed, finally opened.

She heard the gentle breeze of the wind moving the leaves of the forest.

Felt the strength of the earth beneath her.

Tasted the salty tears on her lips.

Smelled the embers of the fire still smoldering in the cooking fire pits.

In the back of her mind, she heard whispers, echoes in her mind. Were these the lives the Countess had taken, or previous bearers of the mysterious crystal? Wherever they came from, they brought Anna solace and what felt like understanding.

She looked at the paper in her trembling hands again. The words may have been written in another language, but she read them as clearly as if she'd written it in her own hand. Anna spoke them aloud, a firmness in her voice not entirely her own.

My blood to your blood, my heart to your heart, my life to your life. I hurt so that you heal. I die so that you live.

Whether she said them in the writer's native language or her own, Anna didn't know, but she felt warmth in her hands. The Countess' words echoed in her mind. "A touch can heal. A hand can revive." Her no longer trembling hands began to glow, and she pressed them to Elsa's burned face, cradling her blistered cheeks in her palms. Anna leaned over and kneaded her lips to Elsa's broken, blackened flesh.

Anna felt energy flowing from her into Elsa. She whooped with joy as golden light flowed from her hands across Elsa's body. Charred flesh mended. Burned skin healed. Elsa's form glowed with light as Anna's magic rejuvenated her slowly, undoing the destruction the enemy's magic had wrought. Anna held Elsa's body close to her in the night, the soft glow illuminating the forest floor as she began to restore her sister to health.

Elsa sat cross-legged in the main chamber of Ahtohallan, her snow white dress pooled around her legs. Her mother looked down from the blue crystal walls, and the spirits' crystals flared to life.

"Mother… I failed. I wasn't strong enough to defeat the Deathlord. He bested me easily, with one shot," she said, ashamed. The only silver lining to her humiliating defeat was that she was at least able to protect her sister momentarily, but dread crushed that small victory. She had spared Anna from the blast, but earned only a short reprieve against the seeming inevitability of defeat at the Deathlord's hands.

"You are strong enough, Elsa," intoned the guardian in Iduna's voice. "You are more than strong enough, especially with Anna's help. Even now, as you lay unconscious in her lap, she is using her power to heal you."

"Why couldn't I beat him, then? Why couldn't I fight off his magic?"

Iduna chuckled gently. "Listen to yourself, Elsa. What is wrong with what you are saying, even now? What word are you using that's the answer to your question?"

"I don't understand."

"There it is again, dear."

Elsa drew her lower lip between her teeth, frustrated. What was it the guardian was trying to tell her?

The image of Iduna glowed, blue mist flowing around it, and then Iduna herself stepped out of the wall to gather her daughter in a warm embrace. Elsa gasped. "Mother… is it really you?"

"My dear Elsa, this is our fault, Agnarr's and mine. We raised you to stand on your own, to not need anyone, to stay away from everyone, to keep everyone safe from you - especially your sister - and I regret it with all my heart. Doing so cut you off from the source of your power," she murmured into Elsa's hair.

"Love," Elsa answered.

"Not just love, Elsa. Anna's love. You are trying to do this yourself, trying to protect Anna, trying to shield her from harm. Your love for her does you credit, but in doing so, you are fighting with a hand tied behind your back. Every time you say 'I', you speak the reason you were defeated by the Deathlord."

Elsa nodded. "I wasn't using my power and Anna's."

"Nor were you using all your power, Elsa."

Nokk's voice whistled in the air. "You are more than just the frost, Elsa. Stop relying on it alone."

Elsa leaned her face into her mother's chest, tears falling from her eyes onto Iduna's purple robe. "I've been such a fool, Mother. I thought I could keep everyone safe, that I wouldn't have to tap into things… things that weren't mine."

"The magic you have been given by the spirits isn't theirs, Elsa. It's yours. They gave it to you freely, as the fifth spirit. It is yours to use to save yourself, to save Anna, to save this world from being conquered by death. Use it all, please, I beg you," Iduna said softly, her hands rubbing gentle circles on Elsa's shoulders.

Elsa savored the warmth from her mother's hug. Whether it was a dream, magic, or a near-death experience didn't matter. All she knew and felt was deep gratitude, to rest herself in her mother's arms one more time, especially after being unable to say goodbye or hug her. She hadn't had control of her powers the last time she stood in front of her mother, couldn't risk touching her.

"I will, Mother. I know what I need to do now. Thank you, thank you so much. You've always been there for me when I needed you most," she said through grateful tears.

"I am always with you, Elsa. With you and Anna. Now please, Elsa, it's time to…"

"Wake up! Please, Elsa, wake up," Anna breathed, stroking Elsa's healed, restored cheeks, the new flesh reflecting the early morning sun's glow shining through the trees of the forest.

Elsa inhaled sharply, her eyes snapping open.

"Elsa!" Anna shrieked, pressing her lips forcefully against her sister's.

"Mmph! Anna!" Elsa responded, pushing back slightly to create enough space to talk. "What- where's Mother?"

"Mother?"

Elsa rubbed the fatigue from her eyes, realizing that her time in Ahtohallan must have been a dream. She paused to look at her hands, the skin fresh and pink. Her last conscious memory was feeling her skin burning away under the Deathlord's flames. She slowly sat up, expecting pain and finding none.

"Did you heal me, Anna?"

Anna nodded quietly, biting her lip. Her first attempt at using the power given to her by the spirits worked out in the end, but the experience was far more harrowing than she thought it would be. How Elsa managed to do so with ease astonished her, until she remembered that Elsa spent thirteen years fearing her powers, and only mastered them in the last six years.

"Thank you," Elsa said, pressing a gentle kiss against her sister's blushing cheek. "I wouldn't have survived without you."

"And I wouldn't have survived if you hadn't shielded me instead of yourself, which, by the way, was crazy of you. If you had died, I would have been trapped in that ice!" Anna protested. "Next time, think of yourself first, okay?"

"I can't, Anna. I never will when it comes to you."

Anna's face soured momentarily, then relaxed. In truth, she'd always make the same choice as well, putting Elsa before herself. She couldn't blame her for loving in the exact same way she did. "Now what?" she asked, listening to the quiet of the forest around her. The portal to Stonehenge had long since closed, the Arendellians and Northuldra safely away from the field of battle.

"Now we finish this. When I was… healing, I had a vision, a vision of Mother in Ahtohallan, telling me how to win this battle." Elsa recounted the details of her dream in detail.

Anna nodded. "All right. Will- will you listen to Mother? Will you stop shielding me and let me fight beside you, empower you?"

Elsa sighed. "I have to. If we are to win, I have to surrender my fears. We have to protect each other."

"There's… something else. Speaking of fears, just before I pulled you to safety, I-" Anna took a deep breath and released it, her shoulders sagging, "I saw him, Elsa."

"The Deathlord?"

"No… Kristoff. Kristoff and Sven. They- they weren't alive," she muttered, a tear forming at the corner of her eye.

Elsa turned to embrace her sister. "Oh, Anna. I am so sorry, sorry that you had to see that, sorry that this war is stirring up so much." Elsa rubbed her hands down Anna's back, soothing her as her sister sobbed into her shoulder. Cold fury boiled in her stomach again, seething blue fire she would hurl against the Deathlord for breaking her sister's heart all over again.

"It's okay. I know it isn't really them. I was just… shocked to see them again, in any form. Elsa… if we- I mean, when we defeat this Deathlord, will they be… able to rest?" The redhead shuddered, the mental image still stuck with her of her fiance and his best friend leading the charge against her and Elsa.

"I don't know, Anna. I hope so. I would imagine without him to control the dead, they'll just be returned to… the way they were, I suppose."

Anna's lips firmed, her mouth a thin line, her jaw tightening. "Then let's finish this. Let's put an end to this once and for all so that my… our friends can be laid to rest properly, at long last."

Elsa turned her head to look towards the south. If she'd been unconscious for the whole night, then the Deathlord and his army would have moved past the North Mountain. They would be entering the Enchanted Forest soon. She felt Anna's determination steel her own. "Yes. Let's end this," she declared.

Author's Notes

The last fluff before the final battle.

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