Elsa was acting super weird. There was no other way to describe it. Perhaps it was being back here, in the wilderness, that prompted a return to a paranoid state of mind. Waiting for her demons to rise from the leafy stillness. Or perhaps she really could sense something - a bonus of her magic, or just a result of years of hypervigilance - that the others didn't.

But she'd been fine for the first few weeks, when they arrived. More than fine. She'd been radiant. It was just the last few days she'd been...distracted. Peering out the window with narrowed eyes. Skulking around outside, periodically stopping to freeze and cock her head to the side. Then stomping back inside as though she'd just had an argument with somebody.

Of course, whenever Anna asked if something was up, the answer was no. Nothing. Everything was fine. Totally normal.

She seemed to have officially lost her mind one frosty morning when she grabbed the crossbow and the specially made anti-magic arrows that the guard had given Kristoff to kill her. She tested them by touching the metal tips then withdrew her fingers with a wince like she'd just touched a flame, and marched outside with hard determination on her face. Anna followed her out, keeping a cautious distance.

A single bird sat perched on a low branch singing its lilting song. A little yellow willow warbler. Nothing particularly special about it. Elsa kneeled about ten paces before it, raising the crossbow slowly.

Target practice? Seemed a bit brutal for someone who couldn't bring herself to kill a hare.

Or was she just really really not a fan of the particular birdsong?

She drew the arrow back just a fraction, aimed it toward the warbler, and the song stopped. It looked straight at her, and sang just one note.

The string groaned as she pulled the arrow further back, gripping the weapon tight. The tendons in her hands jumped beneath pale skin.

It sang another note.

She pulled the arrow all the way back with shaking hands, ready to shoot, biting her lip so hard it looked like it might bleed. A single tear rolled down the side of her cheek.

Anna didn't dare interrupt this bizarre ritual, though her concern grew by the second.

The bird stopped singing. It stopped dead still and closed its eyes.

Elsa lowered the crossbow and released the arrow, letting it stab itself into the base of the tree with a whoosh and a thunk. 'How did you find me?'

A flash of blinding light and warbled vision gave way to a person, standing where the bird had stood. Still perched barefoot on the little branch which seemed too weak to realistically support that much weight - it didn't even sag. It was a very pretty young man. Or perhaps a robust girl with handsome features, a strong jawline, straight nose, high arched eyebrows. Dressed in layers of natural looking materials. Greens, yellows, pinks and browns, with skinny legs poking out. A dark, patterned cloak with little shiny trinkets dangling around the neckline. The getup was topped off with a ridiculous broad-brimmed hat, frayed and decorated with feathers and flowers and random shiny strings.

Slowly it dawned on Anna. This was no human. This was Fex. It had to be.

'I've been looking for a while.' He (or she?) said sheepishly in a smooth melodic voice. 'I was flying over the borderlands and I looked down and saw that...someone got their ma-gic ba-ack.' Those last words went up into an awkward, constrained attempt at singsong notes at the end. 'Yay?'

'So did you.' Elsa said. She held no emotion in her voice but it wasn't the passive blankness she gave to men who frightened her. It was cold, bitter, and utterly focused. 'Seven years ago. Was it worth it?'

The pauses between them were impossibly long. Anna was keen to hear the answer. Elsa had explained, briefly and in vague detail, that he'd betrayed her essentially in exchange for a magical artifact which he needed to present to his own people in order to be granted his magic back.

In her hiding place behind a thick ash tree, she felt a boiling rage rising into her throat and sizzling under her skin, despite the snowflakes landing softly on her hair and the cold wind growing stronger by the second. An urge to squeeze and snap that skinny, bejangled neck. He ought to have dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness. But she couldn't intervene. Couldn't make this about her. This was Elsa's demon to face.

And face it she did. Her hard, icy eyes stared into pleading dark ones that glittered with flashes of bright colour like black opals, waiting for an answer.

'I tried to tell myself you'd have done the same. If our situations had been reversed.' He gave a long, slow sigh, letting his pitiful excuse just hang in the cold air. 'But I know in my heart…'

He looked up at Elsa, searching for some softness. Some understanding. But the only sign that she felt anything was in the dark clouds gathering in front of the sun, sucking all the highlights and warm tones from the clearing, filtering everything through a dreary blue-grey shadow. The cold wind howled against bare trees like a lonely street dog. It felt like evening, though it was barely lunch time.

'Never.' She said.

'No.' He looked down again. 'I know you probably never wanted to see me again…'

Again, the pause was long enough to drive a person crazy. They just stared and stared. At each other, at the sky, back to each other.

'And yet here you are.'

'Here I am.'

It was becoming difficult to hear the painfully slow conversation over the rising winds and naked trees thrashing against each other.

Frost was forming inside Anna's nose and on her eyelids. Her fingers stung from the cold. She jumped as lightning forked through the darkened sky above them with an ear-splitting crack of thunder. But she dared not go inside. She had to see this to the end. All of it.

Fex pulled his cloak tight around him, glanced up at the sky and back to Elsa, 'Hey, you know I love your angry storms. I really do. But uh, I think your lover hiding behind the tree is getting a bit frosty.'

'Anna?' The wind and sleet stopped immediately as Elsa spun around, 'What are you doing out here?'

Anna stepped out from behind the ash tree and took Elsa's freezing hand. What a silly question - she was clearly eavesdropping. 'Um...standing by you, I guess?' She was unsure what else to do. Still seeing red. Trembling with rage and cold and a little bit of fear. She'd never seen a fae before - she had no idea what they were capable of. Aside from cold-blooded betrayal, of course.

'Pleasure to meet you,' Fex held out a narrow hand with long, pointed fingernails and a mess of gaudy jewellery, which Anna did not shake.

'Can't say the same for you.' She wasn't going to meddle, but she would make her position known.

'I always did suspect you would prefer the fairer sex-'

'Enough!' Elsa snapped. Her words were clipped and cold. 'Enough with the small-talk. Why are you here? What do you want?'

Fex shrugged and looked at the ground, 'Oh, nothing much. Just, you know, redemption, absolution, atonement. Small favours, really, in the scheme of things.'

Elsa rolled her eyes and...was that a hint of a smile? She really had lost it. The sky was still dark but the winds had paused. The temperature was...slightly more bearable.

'Fex, it doesn't work like that. The choices you've made are your burdens to bear. Do I look like Jesus hanging on a cross to you? I can't- I can't save your soul.'

Fex looked down at his pointed boots and shuffled a little, wordless and presumably ashamed.

'Best I can do is a cup of tea.'

'What!' Oh, hell no. Anna was not okay with this. 'No! Are you crazy? We are not inviting him in for tea and cakes!'

'Anna, please.' Elsa said softly, 'I think I need this.'

'Well, alright.' She couldn't deny Elsa the chance to say her piece. To put this sorry fellow through the ringer. She held her fingers in a V-shape, pointing to each of her eyes, and then to Fex's. Back to her own narrowed eyes, and back to his again, 'But I'm watching you. Any funny business you...you'll…' by what authority could she threaten him now? She wore no crown. She had no men. Princess Anna as she was previously known was officially dead. And in the wake of his bird transformation and Elsa's freaking lightning storm, she was hyper-aware of her exceptional ordinariness. There was little she could do if they decided to have a magical duel or something. But that wasn't going to stop her from putting him in his place. Authority was mostly a matter of confidence, sometimes. 'You'll be sorry!'

'Oh, darling.' He said casually, 'Believe me, I already am.'

Elsa boiled water on the hearth while Anna perched herself on the bench in the corner like a surveillance hawk. Letting her suspicion be known. Watching intently, hoping it was making him deeply uncomfortable.

Fex's eyes moved over the cottage's interior, resting on each quaint detail they'd built up over the last few weeks. The patterned tablecloth taken from the upstairs chest. The flowers in the centre of the table. Herbs drying in the rack. The patched up curtains. 'It's a nice place you've got here. Fancier than our camping days.'

'This is nothing. I was in a palace, just before. Her palace.' Elsa motioned to Anna with her head. 'That was fancy.'

'Why'd you both leave?'

'Political complications.'

'Of course.'

It was maddening to watch. The way they spread the bearberry jam onto their bread and sipped their tea like a couple of chummy ladies whose husbands were talking war in the next room. Their conversation flitted through banal topics. He took off his hat at one point and scratched at two flat stumps poking out from his mess of blond hair. Elsa reached out to touch one of them gently, 'They're growing back.'

'Yeah, finally. They're itchy.' He smiled, and his whole face changed. Turning softer and more feminine as specks of colour refracted in those dark crystalline eyes. It was surreal. Anna especially hated that he was beautiful. 'Have you been to the hot springs yet?'

'What hot springs?'

'Up on the cliffside, just east of the creek. Inaccessible for the average person. But you could make a staircase. You make them so beautifully.'

'I do, don't I?'

How could Elsa claim she "needed this"? What was she possibly getting out of this, pretending things were alright? Anna felt like she was about to burst. She didn't understand.

'So how are things in Fairy-Land?' Elsa said in an ominously light tone.

'I hate how you call it that-'

'Did you get the hero's welcome you dreamed of?'

'Not quite. I mean I got my magic back, sure, but it's been suggested that what I did was perhaps-'

'Morally reprehensible?' Anna interrupted, unable to restrain herself. 'Heinous? Despicable? Unforgivable?'

'Yes.' He knew it. It was in the way his eyes moved to the side and his breath hitched in his throat. 'Yes, even by our standards. Even the old ones who see human life as fairly inconsequential...were not impressed. But Elsa, you have to believe me. I didn't realise...truly, I didn't realise the gravity of what I was sentencing you to.'

'Of course, you thought the duke wanted me over for a tea party.' Contempt bled into Elsa's words, now. Scathing sarcasm so unlike her. Finally, a normal reaction. 'To be his guest of honour.'

'They didn't seem cruel when I met them. The duke, the doctor, they all seemed like such reasonable people. Men of science. They said they wanted to help you! Even his soldiers were so polite and respectful-'

'Oh, you believed them? Please. Nobody with severed horns is that naive.'

'No, of course, it's not that I believed them completely.' He reached up under his hat and scratched nervously, 'But I didn't think it would be so- I never imagined- I- I dream about it, you know? The sound of your screaming. I still hear it so clearly. Over and over. In the night. I wake up and... That sound...that sound is haunting me. What I did... eats away at me. Like a blight. I feel like I'm turning into a shadow.'

He reached across the table for her hands, but she withdrew them sharply.

'Yes, well.' Elsa's chair scraped jarringly as she stood up and started clearing the table with quick, choppy movements, still keeping her contemptuous voice remarkably level. As though she was reading a really awfully written story they were all gathered together to scorn at. 'That was just a taster. After you sold me-'

'I didn't sell you-' He cringed at that ugly word.

'You did, Fex, just like all the rest of them, after you. Except they were honest. You said we were a team, and that you'd always be there for me. Then you sold me like a bag of wheat. Don't fool yourself, it only got worse after that. Once they realised they couldn't make a weapon out of me-' She gripped her upper arm where the amulet used to sit, 'Do you think they let me go? Or even just let me earn an honest coin as a lowly maid? No. No, I wasn't human enough to evn wash their chamber pots or scrub their floors. I'll spare you the details though, I wouldn't want to haunt you any further.'

She opened the door in one swift movement. 'Death would have been kinder.'

'I'd been hoping I could somehow make it up to you. I know that's probably not possible, but...' Fex moved toward the exit, contrite, understanding the message. He placed a small metal contraption on the table, rather like a round, narrow box, and mumbled as he trudged out, 'In the unlikely event that you ever want my help, just light it up. Any time. Anywhere. I will be there.'

'Goodbye, Fex,' Elsa held the door open, allowing cold wind and fat snowflakes to invade the warmth of the cottage. Not looking at him once. 'Sleep well.'

She closed the door gently and went back to the bench, pulling out ingredients and utensils, humming softly as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Eventually she pressed up against a still speechless Anna, still perched on the bench in the corner, wrapped her arms around her and mumbled, 'I'm sorry you had to hear all that.'

'You're sorry?' A truly baffling response. 'Elsa, no! You don't...that was… you seem suspiciously okay after all that.' She gently pushed Elsa back by the shoulders, squinting at her, searching for any clues as to what was going on under that mask. She found none. No flushed skin or racing pulse, no trembling or clenched jaw. But the sky outside was dark, again. 'How are you feeling?'

'I feel…' A particularly harsh gust of wind rattled the windows, sending branches banging into the glass. Elsa jumped at the noise but turned back to Anna, holding her tighter, nuzzling her neck and ear, nipping at her lips with soft, satisfied grunts, 'Suspiciously okay.'

II

Anna often played with her little crocus necklace, absentmindedly, while chatting or eating or cuddling on the couch, telling each other stories of better days gone by and dreaming of better days to come. Her royal childhood wasn't as I'd expected. There was farless prancing around laughing at jesters, and far more studying and learning how to repress one's natural self in favour of the correct language, correct posture, correct reactions, correct thoughts and feelings. It saddened me a little, but mostly it impressed me that she retained such a free and spontaneous disposition. So much fire in her soul.

At times I wondered if we'd have been better off in reversed roles. Anna would have been less lonely with so many siblings to play with. So popular with the village children who loved to run and play all day. And as for me, I always liked rules. They made me feel safe. And surely if a queen was born with such powers, nobody would be able to lock her away or chase her with weapons or spread vicious, needless slander about her.

Weeks passed by and the snow grew thicker, and I asked her, occasionally, when we would return to Arendelle, but she merely told me she was frightened to go back. She didn't know who to trust. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. The whole prospect was overwhelming, and she wasn't ready to face it. I could see in her eyes there was more than just fear. Guilt, too. And shame. Nothing is worse than shame, so I dropped it.

Truth be told, I was frightened to return, as well. There wasn't really anything for me there, besides Anna. Only a formidable reputation preceding me. Potentially angry mobs with pitchforks. Only this time the reputation wasn't wholly falsified. I had indeed killed those two men.

I knew that Anna was right, and that I did only what I had to do. They left me no choice, and to not act would have been a greater risk than we could take. To not kill the man who held a knife to her neck, and the one who raised a potion at me, would have left us vulnerable. I knew at that moment it was our lives or theirs, and I made the right choice.

But still, it unnerved me how quickly, how easily I made the decision. How ready and how hungry I was for more, when the prince was finally at my mercy. How completely natural it felt to end those lives and how it satiated something deep and dark within me.

It frightened me because it confirmed all that had been said about me and my true nature in hushed voices behind closed doors, since I was a little child (children always manage to hear such things), using magic only to make toys and decorations, eager to please and quick to love, with violence having never crossed my innocent mind.

Perhaps it felt so natural because I was born for this. For death and destruction. For violence and carnage. To tip the balance of power. Perhaps I was truly, inherently, at my core, a weapon. A monster. With no business walking around like a person. Not even human enough to scrub their chamber pots.

And if I was such, then they were all correct, weren't they? Then I deserved it. All of it. Everything.

These were the thoughts that plagued me after Fex's visit. In some ways it felt like a dream. In other ways, it felt like we'd never been apart, and all the time in between was a dream. At first, as Anna suggested, I was suspiciously okay (though the weather betrayed me). But my troubles build up like a snowdrift builds up overnight, silently, while you sleep, blocking the door and trapping you inside.

I didn't share these thoughts with Anna, despite her poking and prodding. I tried hard to conceal my anguish because I didn't want to upset her. There was no need for my old burdens to drag us both down into needless melancholy. The past is in the past, I told myself.

The past is in the past. If only it would stay there. But it stalked me like a hungry wolf and I walked, wandered, kissed, read, foraged, cooked, ran to escape it. I climbed up to those hot springs and found reprieve in the beauty of nature. Places like these soothed my soul. Because, like Fex said, it was inaccessible to the average person. It didn't exist for show or splendour or anyone else's utility or enjoyment. It existed just for itself. Isn't that the dream?

After so many years of struggling against nature, we were finally reunited once again. My curse was once more a gift. And what a beautiful gift it would be, were it not for the evil, suspicious, paranoid, power-hungry hearts of men. I felt very free and very safe up there by myself. But also very alone. The dull, heavy ache of isolation that I'd endured for so long I'd become numb to it. And now that I had love in my life, the reminder stung like the blood rushing back into one's hands when tight bindings are finally removed. I knew what I wanted.

I wanted to take Anna to the hot springs. Specifically, I wanted to take her there, and make passionate love to her under the stars. Properly. Reciprocally. It was such an exquisite place, surrounded by vines and lush greenery and patterned stone. Half the pool was hidden within the mouth of a cave, while the other half extended out under the open sky. The water was deliciously warm and clear and sweet smelling, but the winds were brutal, so I made a shield of clear ice to keep them out but let the view in. I set up a corner of the cave ready for a small fire, and conjured an icy tube above it to carry the smoke out, then I dotted the inside of the cave with little blue lights. I collected flowers, too, and preserved them very carefully in clear, thin ice, like I used to when I was a child, then scattered them carefully in swathes of delicate colour. I knew that when I thawed them, they would be soft and fresh as if just picked. Swept away by my own romantic notions, I arranged the lights into the shape of a heart, but embarrassment got the better of me and I scattered them again.

I felt so humiliated after our little bedroom mishap before. So ashamed and angry with myself. But anger turned to determination, because why shouldn't I partake in what was such a simple and fundamental human experience as to feel the loving hands of my sweetheart upon my body? Didn't I deserve as much, after enduring so many cruel ones?

I also didn't want to tease Anna.

Well, not too much.

I descended into the pool, alone, again and again. trying to visualise myself dying to my pain, emerging renewed and reborn. Unbroken. Unafraid. Visualising myself and Anna together, bold and unashamed. Visualised the fear in my veins melting into the heat of the water, going back into the earth, filling me new and making me whole.

Because it wasn't just about the soldiers and the initial capture, although yes, they tore out my soul and severed it into a thousand pieces while my "best friend" stood there and did nothing. It was about more than that. Something I didn't know if I could explain to sweet Anna who had shared herself so freely with me. It was about the purpose of clothes in general. Clothes separate us from the animals. Clothes tell us all sorts of things. About dignity and boundaries and hierarchy and who we are, and what we are, and where we belong. About all these abstract concepts that aren't truly real until you're cold and exposed on a hard stone floor being examined for severed wings or horns or fangs or a tail or a witch's teat (as if such an absurd notion exists). Until you're strapped to a chair being made to hold a hot coal to see if it burns you. Until you're interrogated for days and nights until you're tempted to just give in, and admit that you really have sold your soul to the devil, if you thought it would grant you a glimpse of the sun. Until you're beaten again, when your old bruises haven't even had time to heal, because a vial of your tears fetches such a good price on the black market. And you come to learn that nakedness is a weapon. It serves no scientific or spiritual or useful purpose but to keep you docile and submissive with panic and shame.

These are the lessons I tried to unlearn. The memories I tried to drown as I lay on the floor of the pool until my lungs burned, bare and receptive, beckoning the endless sky above to grant me courage and belonging and peace.

III

Kristoff scratched the back of his neck. His eyes darted around. He drummed his fingers on the table. He'd just got back from the village, but it took him nearly three times as long as usual. Clearly something was up.

'Well?' Anna said, 'Did something happen? You didn't get interrogated, did you?'

'Well, kinda-'

'Oh my god! Are you okay?' She reached for his hands and turned them over, lifted his hair, inspected him for injuries, 'Are you hurt?'

'No!' He pushed her away, 'I mean, not physically, though I did get called some very...creative insults.'

Elsa nodded seriously, 'Oh dear, words can leave lifelong scars.'

'Kristoff, stop messing with me, you stinky moss-butt! What happened?'

Kristoff took a deep breath, poured himself some coffee, and began, 'Well, I got to the village, and everything was ridiculously expensive. I mean, it's been getting bad lately, but this was even worse than usual. I thought it must be a local problem. Slowed trade routes or something. All the couriers gone off to war. So I went to the next village. Same deal. So I thought, what the hell? It's been a while, I'll go all the way to Port Boldor. That's a decent sized town, and it's a nice ride. Prices should be lower, maybe I'll even get us some treats. So I stayed in an inn for the night and got there the next day.

'So there I am in Port Boldor market, minding my own business, selling your French bracelet to a jeweller. The ugly one with the sapphires and the horse charms on it. And this crazy milkmaid just pulls me into an alley and attacks me!'

'Attacks you like physically or verbally?' Anna asks, only because of his earlier comment has her curious.

'Both! Well, mostly verbally. She did hit me with a cheese wheel, though, while she accused me of abducting you! She even had her lackeys come and corner me and demand to know where I was keeping you.'

'Did they also terrorise you with cheese?' Elsa asked.

'But why?' Anna asked. In Port Boldor? That made no sense. Nobody there would know Kristoff, nor that he was the one to bring back Anna's cloak. Anna had only been there a handful of times for a handful of stuffy events too bland to remember. 'Why would they target you? How could they know you have anything to do with me?'

'Weellll…' He drew out the word, awkwardly avoiding eye contact again, 'She recognised the bracelet...'

'The bracelet.' Anna tried to think back. The bracelet was a gift from the French ambassador who had visited in the summer. But how could some milkmaid possibly know that? She'd never worn it in public because it wasn't to her taste at all. It rather looked like something one might give a small child. She remembered laughing about it with… 'Astrid?'

'Surprise?' The door opened and a familiar figure poked her head inside nervously.

'Anna?' It couldn't be. After all that had happened, it was really her! Joy and relief quickly turned to concern though, as Astrid stepped into full view. Her once dewey skin was now pale and wan. Her big brown eyes sagged at the corners. Her dark hair had lost its shine and hung limp and dull down her back. 'I knew you weren't dead! Mama says I'm crazy but I knew it couldn't be true!' She lunged into a hug and Anna found herself quite overwhelmed with the memories of everything that had happened back before her life had become unmoored, piece by piece. The first thing that hit her was the familiar scent. The scent of a carefree summer and the thrill of forbidden tryst. The cheeky messages written on napkins. The hot breath on her neck and double meanings in her words every time the sassy maid dished up glazed peaches or toasted buns at state banquets. The way they flaunted it right under everyone's noses. The second thing that hit her was Astrid's markedly diminished frame. The hard bumps of ribs and spine that could be felt even under her raggedy winter layers.

'Astrid…' The third thing that Anna noted was Elsa's hand squeezing her thigh under the table.

'I'm sorry to barge in on you like this! But I had to see for myself. It's so good to see you.'

'No, it's okay. It's good to see you too! You look...different.' And not a good different. 'Are you, um, feeling well?'

'No, not really.' She sighed and withdrew from the hug to lean against the table with one leg crossed over the other, in that effortlessly cool and slightly masculine stance she always took. 'I mean I'm poor, I'm cold, I'm starving. My cows are starving. Everybody's miserable and wretched and starving. There's death and damnation and pestilence all around. Everything went to shit when your parents died. God rest their souls.' She kissed her fingers and held them up to the ceiling briefly, 'With all the tax hikes. Aid cuts. That's when we started to think something fishy was going on. I knew you'd never bleed us dry like that. And then when you disappeared even the shit turned to shit. A world of purified, extra-potent shit, if you will. And we're all just skinny little flies with no choice but to eat it up.'

She was always very blunt. Anna had missed that.

'But look at me, raving on about all my stuff. We haven't even been introduced.' She held out her hand, 'You must be Elsa.'

'That's- I am- yep.' She shook hands awkwardly, 'That's me. I am Elsa.'

'Astrid.'

So many awkward things could be said now. Anna felt oddly ashamed, having both these people here in the same room. She hoped it didn't come across like she'd just replaced Astrid immediately, without a care. But the truth was Anna had needed someone, and Elsa was just...there. Also needing someone. Thankfully her impeccable people skills remained unwithered. 'I'm glad to know Anna hasn't been alone throughout all these recent… challenges.'

How sweet. How earnest. Anna looked down, ashamed, and fidgeted with the edge of the table cloth. Here she was, skipping around the forest, tasting berries and making love (or rather having love made to her, one time, to be more accurate) while her people starved! 'I'm sorry about the whole faking my death thing. Things back at the castle were getting pretty...complicated.'

'I figured.' Astrid helped herself to one of the plums sitting in a bowl on the table. Of course. She must be hungry.

'Did you want a sandwich?' Anna asked, suddenly remembering her manners and also being overcome with an urge to feed her poor, skinny ex-girlfriend. 'Or some coffee? Or-'

'What I want is for you to come and take back Arendelle.'

Of course she did. Astrid was a patriot through and through, even after what had happened between them (and trying, unduly, to claim all the blame for seducing poor hapless Anna). A rare concentration of loyalty. The council could learn a thing or two.

But it just wasn't that simple. How could she just walk back into a palace of scheming sharks who had plotted against her like that? Just her and Elsa, alone against it all?

'Look, I get it. Everyone needs a break, sometimes. And if his rule is any indication of his character then it can't have been easy, being married to that...man. I won't say king,' Astrid spat the word like it was a curse, 'because I can't- I won't accept this.'

'How...how bad is it?' Guilt rose like bile in Anna's throat. Elsa's hand squeezed again under the table.

'They patrol the streets, seize our houses, plunder our winter stores.' Astrid's voice rose higher and louder, 'They leave us hungry and homeless then hang anyone who steals a loaf of bread. They hung a child, Anna. A child! In public! Our boys are signing up for the war because they think they'll get fed better in the army, but there's no funding for hospitals so god help them when they come back.'

If they come back, nobody said.

'I'm so sorry.' Anna held her heavy head in her hands, allowing hot tears to fall. She'd never meant for this. Never dreamed it would get this bad. But she knew what Hans was like. She should have known better! 'I've failed. I've failed you all.'

Elsa's arms came around her and she spoke quiet, kind reassurances. 'No, no, you didn't fail. You did what you had to. Your life was in danger.' She looked up at Astrid while Anna took a moment to breathe, and defended her. 'It's been really rough. In the castle.'

'Yeah.' Astrid nodded and softened her tone, 'Elsa's right. You're no good to anyone dead. You haven't failed until you've given up.'

Inspiring sentiment, but she still didn't have the first clue how to begin the gargantuan task of putting this right. The first step. 'But Astrid, it's not that simple. I can't just walk in and sit down on the throne and click my fingers and make everything better. My council turned against me. It was a conspiracy. They infiltrated everything, they killed my parents. It was planned! They're everywhere, they're...organised!'

'So are we.' Astrid shrugged and gave a cocky half-smile.

'What?' Anna sniffled, not understanding. 'You mean us, here? We're four people-'

'No, not us four in this cottage, you silly sausage. We, the resistance! We're everywhere. In the fields, in the forges, in the pubs, even in the universities. We're not stupid. Everyone suspects foul play. And when people find out you're alive!' Her eyes shone as she gazed into the distance, 'Everyone wants Arendelle back the way it was. Fair and just and reasonable. Your people love you, Anna. They'll fight for you.'

'Really?' Anna sobbed now, even harder. With guilt and relief and a little bit of fear, too, because now she had no excuse to put it off.

'Of course. Did you think you had to do this all by yourself?'

Well, yeah. She kind of did. Because who would tell her such things? Her only companions were Elsa, Kristoff, and perhaps Gerda, none of whom hung out in fields and forges and pubs and universities. She'd been locked away grieving and hadn't even seen her people for some time when she left. But her parents, for all their flaws, had done well in sending her out for all those constant public engagements. Reading to children and christening new businesses and touring farms. She was popular and she knew it. And now that it had been said, it seemed obvious. She had to take back Arendelle for Arendelle.

'Okay.' She said, wiping her tears and slamming her fist on the table. 'Let's do this.'

She was ready. She was born ready.