"Eating alone again today?"
Elsa looked up from her journal. She sat in the mustiest, gloomiest corner of the library. Which objectively wasn't all that musty or gloomy, but from her perspective might as well have been a dark, damp dungeon. Surrounded by the familiarity of books, she found some semblance of comfort from the disquietude within. At least it was quiet here. As if that didn't make her thoughts twice as loud.
"You're one to talk," She snapped. Then, she paused, pinching the bridge of her nose and looking down shamefully, more than a little shocked with herself for her outburst. "I'm sorry. Yes I- I'm eating alone today. Again." That hurt a little more to say than she expected.
Belle shook her head and gave a rueful smile. "It's okay." She sat down, dropping her book bag- literally a bag she had just for books- to the floor next to her seat, and her lunch on the table. The blonde was fiddling with that diary of hers and looked rather tense. Belle pursed her lips. "Is everything alright?"
"Is everything alright with you?" Elsa deflected. The brunette pondered this for a moment and determined that everything was not alright with her friend.
Leaning to rest her cheek on her hand, Belle tapped her finger to her chin with a small sigh. "Me and Adam got in a fight." Honesty, in her experience, built the sturdiest bridges.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Elsa chewed her lip, closing her journal and placing it aside. She turned her attention to her dejected company. "What um," she started, then averting her gaze, "what happened? If you don't mind my asking?"
With a soft smile, the French girl relaxed her posture. She used her fork to toy with, uh, whatever that goopy stuff she got from the cafeteria was, not feeling all that hungry anyway. The silence of the library allowed time to collect her thoughts, as did it provide ample space for her little sigh to occupy between them. She considered the question for a moment as she regarded Elsa. Sure, it was likely asked in some sort of distraction from the girl's own drama, but there was an earnest concern in her voice, too.
"I suppose I pushed Adam a little too far." Belle fiddled with her hands in her lap. "It wasn't- well, it was about something silly, when I think about it now." She looked down almost shamefully then. She noticed Elsa leaning in slightly in the peripheral of her vision.
"Anyway," the French girl pressed onward, her frown growing heavy as she recalled the rather unsavory experience. "He ended up requesting that I leave." She sniffled, eyes watering hotly as they glanced at her friend. The vivid image of her boyfriend's livid face was etched into her memory like a scar. It'd likely fade in time, but never entirely. She did recall feeling fear in that moment, when he was yelling at her. "We haven't spoken since."
"I'm so sorry." Elsa fidgeted in place, hands coming up to clutch her braid but pausing inches away, though Belle couldn't imagine why she hesitated to grab her own hair. Then again, Belle wasn't there two months ago. The blonde deflated and dropped her anxious hands restlessly to her lap. "Are you- are you okay?"
Belle smiled, but it was pained, not really reaching her eyes. "Yeah, I just-" she sighed, taking a moment to berate herself. Elsa took note of this. She knew that feeling. "It just seems so unimportant now." She looked up to her friend, almost pleading. "He's a good guy, he just- just doesn't- doesn't like talking about his past." Belle chewed her lip, once more taking in the sight of the blanched gruel growing on her plate. Maybe the food wasn't actually so gross today. Maybe everything just felt more gross today. "He's done some... and I- wanted to know, so I- I pushed him and I- oh it was so stupid!" She cursed through some falling tears and sniffles. The regret in her stomach's bottom-most pit was... well, it was heavy.
She wiped a tear away from her cheek. It felt all too familiar.
It was around that moment when Elsa solidified the parallels she'd been drawing in her mind. Her to Adam. Belle to Anna.
Ouch, she grimaced. She felt sick to her stomach, her throat felt... thick.
"Are you," she tentatively began, fully aware that what she was about to ask was as much for herself as it was for Belle. "Are you going to talk to him?" It's been two months, her mind taunted, but she pushed that aside, pretending for a moment this was just about Belle.
"I- I don't know, I-" normally clear, brown eyes were etched with red. Puffy, too, as they met Elsa's conflicted blues. "I want to, but I don't want- I mean, I don't want to push him again. What if he's not ready yet?"
The disaccord and turmoil were painted clear as day on Belle's drained face. God, Elsa realized in abject horror, this is what Anna's felt like for months!? How could I do this? How could I be so stupid! So selfish! So- so thoughtless about her! Oh, Anna- I- I...
If she was being honest, she didn't really have the words to describe just how guilty she felt in that moment. Suffice to say, it felt like tiredly lugging a pallet of bricks around and seemed to overshadow everything else, including her fear of their future unknowns. But then, when she talked to Anna, she'd have to see all of the hurt she'd put her through. Feel the pain she'd dealt.
Elsa gulped. Was she ready to see that hurt in Anna's eyes?
Selfish, she chewed herself out again. Her entire goal was to minimize Anna's pain. Her only success thus far was causing significantly more suffering. All because she was what? Uncomfortable talking about college? She agreed with Belle, it was so unbelievably, undeniably, gratingly stupid!
Maybe I shouldn't- oh- oh God. Elsa closed her eyes, welling with tears, and took a deep, shaking breath.
Maybe I'm not the best thing for Anna.
"Is that awful of me?" Belle's meek, innocent question interrupted Elsa's vile, heart wilting rumination.
The blonde shook her head, as if it to shake the very thoughts from her troubled mind. Her stomach was clenched, she sniffled lightly, leaning in towards Belle. Though her jaw trembled and her words choked around what felt like cotton jammed in her throat, she answered honestly. "No. No it isn't," she said heavily as a tear ran the length of her cheek. "I think it's actually pretty selfless of you."
It just so happened that that was the affirmation that Belle needed for the moment, too.
Elsa's song that evening was borderline erratic. It mewled about in slow, longing sections that seemed to drone on with their melody for hours. The somber drawls mettled heedlessly with one another, a unified cry of dread at the unpredictable, imposing change to come. Beautiful, but somber. Morose, the chorus carried in baited anticipation. Elsa's ivory lamentation.
It tinted the room blue, wilting the colorful flowering of high spirits and dragging Idunn's heart down. The pace quickened, the notes tight and dissonant, now anxiously battling. Enthralling as it quickened one's heartbeat, so too was it uncomfortable to hear. The contending notes playing viciously upon the ear, a vehement reminder that one's mind is never truly at rest. That everyone is afraid, in the truest part of their hearts.
Idunn sighed sadly above her heavy heart, and made her way into the room.
The music stopped, and Elsa looked up at her. The young blonde's shoulders were slumped, her eyes seeming to looked right passed her mother into some unseen void. They looked dull, even as the golden evening sun poured in through the windows and brightly reflected from the piano. It just seemed to make the shadows that much more noticeable today.
Of course, Olaf sat, guarding whom he would refer to as his mother, were he able. Elsa took her hand from her instrument and began to stroke her cat. The silence was heavy, thick even after Idunn broke it.
"Sweetheart," she started cautiously, walking forth, a great furrowing of her brows in concern. "Is everything okay?"
Elsa seemed to regard her for several moments. Her lip was trembling, and when she finally spoke, her voice was no more steady. "I... I don't know what to do."
Idunn sat down, Olaf between them now. "Do about what, Honey?" Elsa looked so, utterly lost in that instant. Idunn couldn't recall seeing her daughter look that lost since, well, since before she met Anna. Speaking of, "did you and Anna get in an argument?"
"No," Elsa said defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not really," she corrected. "I don't- I don't know."
A motherly hand came to support Elsa's shoulder, soothing up and down. It seemed to help alleviate the tension held in the girl's spine. Dull, almost grey blue eyes turned away as Elsa sniffled. "Did you and dad- have you ever hurt dad?"
The question caught the older woman off-guard, coming straight out of left field, but she didn't allow her befuddlement to show. Instead, she smiled, strained and awkward as it felt on her face, given the situation. She let a long drawl of air pass her lips as she recalled her many years with Agnarr. "Yes." And oddly, that word seemed to comfort Elsa. "I've said things, done things, that I know pained him greatly."
She had readily surmised that whatever did happen between Elsa and Anna was big. After all, Elsa was behaving this way, and the spritely redhead hadn't been around as much over the last couple months. Not at all in the last week or so, come to think of it. Which was odd, considering the two girls were practically glued together before. She just hoped she could help fix whatever 'it' was.
Elsa looked trepidly up at her mother, so small, so fragile. So much like she used to look all the time. "Did he forgive you?" The words were barely a whisper, and Idunn could see the tinkling of fledgling tears in those young eyes.
She smiled reassuringly and wiped a little tear from Elsa's cheek. Her daughter was shaking a little now. Olaf had noticed this as well, it seemed, because he was resting his head on her thigh. "Of course, sweetie." She paused a moment before adding "and I'm sure Anna will forgive you, too."
Elsa coughed, or sobbed, or something at this. "Do you-" she sniffled, "do you really believe that?" Hopeful. Her eyes were hopeful. At least they weren't dull anymore. Elsa's breath wavered. She was losing control, fighting so hard for composure, but her body kept convulsing in preeminent sobs.
"I really do," Idunn answered honestly, gently. "Anna, she- she cares about you, very much. It doesn't seem her style to hold grudges," she added with a smirk and little twinkle in her eye.
At least one of the blonde's following sobs was a laugh as she let go. Desperate gasps clawed out of her throat, her watering eyes wetting her cheeks as she wailed in near agony. Idunn found Elsa's grip to be incredibly strong- almost painfully so- as her daughter threw her arms around her, holding tight. Like the sentiment she'd just received would be the buoy to get her through this storm. "I'm- I'm-" Elsa cried desperately between breaths, "I'm so- I'm so scared that you're- that you're wrong!"
"Oh, Honey," the woman breathed, petting her child's head, soothing her hand down the girl's back. Fighting back her own tears and lump in her throat, she continued to offer soft support. It'd be okay, she told Elsa who knows how many times, as she felt the tears rolling onto her shoulder. The pinch of fingers around her back, the needy squeeze of her daughter's clinging. She continued to pacify Elsa until she garbled up some words again, still through coughs, sobs, and sniffles.
"How?" Came the sudden question, accompanied by Elsa pulling back in favor of searching desperately into her mother's gentle eyes. "How did you get the- the- the courage to talk to him after?"
Idunn once again turned the corners of her mouth up, brushing a clump of hair out of Elsa's distraught, damp face. Lithe fingers dug bitingly into her shoulders, an indication of just how dependent her daughter was in that moment. "I reminded myself about just how much he loves me," she explained, fully knowing precisely how much the 'L' word would mean to Elsa in that moment.
Elsa choked down her next sob, the room becoming devoid of noise as she clenched her now taut jaw shut. She swallowed almost silently as she appeared to process this. Her eyes were blank, but not blank. It was odd, not even Idunn could place it, exactly. The muscles on the blonde's temples tensed and released repeatedly, and the stillness soon seemed to seep into the air around them. It was dark now, allowing the looming atmosphere to circumscribe the two.
It seemed as though if anything moved anywhere in the house at all, it would shatter Elsa's concentration, the shards of the crystalline air would likely become dangerous. Again, even Olaf seemed to know this because he appeared to be holding his tiny cat breath.
After a long while, Elsa gulped and whispered "I have to call Anna."
"Yes, yes I believe you two have quite a lot to discuss."
Elsa nodded. With a deep breath, she took out her phone.