Elsa had fallen in love.
Not with someone, not with something tangible, but with life itself.
It was an incredible feeling.
All her life she had felt something was missing, something was different, something pulled her apart from everyone else. She loved Anna with all her heart and soul, and always would, but there had always been a small, unsettling void deep inside her that she couldn't understand and couldn't name.
Anna threw love around without rhyme or reason – happy to love everyone and everything, happy to wear her emotions on her sleeve, and it warmed Elsa's heart to see her sister so free and open, but it was . . . strange, to say the least.
Elsa loved Olaf for what he represented, and she loved Kristoff because he loved Anna, and she loved Arendelle because that was her duty and she took it seriously but . . . but it wasn't the same kind of love Anna spoke about. It wasn't the bubbling hot passion that came so easily to Anna, it wasn't the all-encompassing and all-powerful devotion she described.
At first, Elsa had assumed her lack of, for a better phrase, ability to love was just a hangover from years of attempting to conceal what she felt. And it would get better, and she would start to understand as she learnt how to be herself and feel things and get in touch with dormant emotions.
It hadn't happened like that at all.
Anna fell in love with Kristoff, and talked Elsa to death about the topic, but for some reason Elsa couldn't quite get a grasp on what Anna meant exactly. Yes, love was love, but this was different, somehow, and she didn't understand it. Didn't get how it made Anna's heart race and cheeks flush and stomach flutter and send delicious shudders all the way down to her toes.
People spoke of meeting other people, of falling in love, of the way it made them feel. How it changed their lives, changed the way they saw everything. How they couldn't imagine life without this person, how the world was a better place for having met them. For learning to love them.
And Elsa understood that, in concept anyway, but she never felt that way about other people. She never felt a need to, either.
She brought it up once, edging nervously into Anna's room one evening, because Anna had been out with Kristoff all day and had returned with that dopey smile and sighing periodically, and Elsa wondered what that felt like.
"What if I don't know how to fall in love?" she had asked, making a pointed effort not to make eye contact.
Anna, with her usual ability to both say the exact right and wrong thing at the same time, had answered without hesitation, "Everyone knows how to fall in love."
Except for me. Elsa drew her arms around her stomach, shoulders drawing down slightly.
"It's like . . ." Anna fumbled for an explanation, waving a hand around theatrically to prove her point. "Like you want that person around all the time. Like every moment is better with them there. Like . . . like you're one person. And you don't want to let them go. That's what falling in love is."
But Elsa didn't want that. The idea of it made her uncomfortable. She wouldn't want someone around all the time – she wanted her space. She wanted time to herself, she wanted to be alone for long periods. She wanted to keep her privacy, and her routines and habits without needing to account for someone else. She didn't want to take someone else into account for every decision – sometimes she just wanted her own time.
The thought of someone being around all the time made her nervous, made a twist of nausea rise in her stomach.
"What if I don't want anyone around me?"
"Oh, Elsa, it's not like that," Anna had sat up straighter, a gentle smile softening her face. "It's like having someone to complete you. To make you whole. And doubt or fears will go when it's the right person. They just . . . fill in the bits of you that you didn't know were missing. You'll see, one day."
Maybe that would fill in the void. Maybe that would stuff the black hollow deep inside Elsa's belly that never seemed to leave. She was used to it by now, could even forget about it for days at a time, but it was always there.
"When you and Kristoff get married," she had muttered, and Anna had flushed bright red because she was waiting for Kristoff to ask, had been endlessly dropping hints, had reduced him dozens of times to a stammering mess with her forwardness, "Then . . . you'll spend every night with him. And he'll always be there."
"Yup."
It sounded awful. No peace, no quiet, no escape from someone just hovering all the time. It made another twist of anxiety rise from her stomach to her chest, and Elsa had to pause, to draw in a few measured breaths, because the idea of someone being close to her should not give rise to a panic attack.
"Hey," Anna had said gently, laying a hand on her sister's shoulder. "It doesn't have to be like that. And you don't have to find someone right now. There's time. And maybe you'll change your mind. Maybe you'll fall in love and want someone too."
Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would be alone her whole life – and it didn't sound as bad as people made it out to be. Endlessly, she was told she would find a man, would get married, would settle down, but . . . why?
Why couldn't she be happy alone? Why couldn't she be a complete person all by herself?
She let the subject rest for a while, let the black hollow in her belly sit and wait patiently, let herself reflect on her life and her choices, let herself learn more about herself.
And then.
And then she fell in love.
And then she understood everything.
But it wasn't a person, and it didn't have to be a person, and the realization and relief were overwhelming. She didn't have to marry and settle down. She didn't have to have someone constantly at her side. She didn't have to do anything that anyone expected, she didn't have to live up to anyone's notions of true love and a full life but her own. All she needed was herself.
Herself, and the acceptance of who she was; something that had been sorely lacking in her life.
She felt it the very moment she pulled her hair free and let it cascade down her back, and it brought with it a lightness she hadn't expected.
She was enough.
She was a whole, complete person alone.
She didn't need to stress herself sick over the expectations of those around her, she didn't need to panic over the what ifs and the whens – she just needed herself.
She was the one she had been waiting for, all of her life.
A lifetime of feeling different, of feeling like she couldn't fit in, and it turned out to be an unfounded fear, because all she needed was time to realize that she was okay, she was just right, she wasn't broken or confused or anything she had worried about for so long.
She just needed time to learn who she was. She just needed to accept herself.
Normal rules did not apply to her; normal rules like needing to fall in love and share her life with another person. And she no longer felt torn over that, weighted down by what was expected, but now, finally, liberated by the notion that it didn't matter. Only she mattered.
And if she didn't want someone to fall in love with the way Anna fell in love with Kristoff, it was okay.
It was okay, and it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her. She felt airy and free, and so, so relieved. She felt justified, in that just because she was different didn't mean anything was wrong with her.
And the black hollow in her belly felt a little smaller, and started to fade away, and all it had been was the terror of believing that she needed to do what everyone else did, when every instinct she had was screaming against it.
Elsa had found what she had been looking for.
And it was herself.
There was a sense of peace in falling in love.
It wasn't the fire-hot passion Anna seemed to burn with.
It was quiet, and it was beautiful, and it settled deep inside her like untouched snow – white and pure and sparkling.
It was the fresh wind in her lungs, it was the freedom of the water spirit underneath her, it was the joy that sparked at the fire spirit's antics and presence. It was the lack of pressure, it was the star-streaked nighttime where she didn't have to worry about what the morning would bring. It was pure freedom, and it was incredible, and she drew in deep breaths of air, a smile on her face, because, oh, the world was a beautiful, beautiful place.
It was a different kind of falling in love, because she was a different kind of person, and it had taken her a while to realize it because she had been the only person she knew who didn't fall in love like other people did, but the time she wasted stressing over it didn't matter anymore, and the anxiety no longer gnawed at her, and she felt like she could finally breathe.
There was more than one way to fall in love, and there was more than one thing to fall in love with.
It didn't always have to be a person who made the world brighter, and made her feel complete, and made life itself make sense.
It could be her.
It could be the wind and wildfires, it could be the crashing ocean and it could be the earth underneath her. It could be ice and snow, and it could be acknowledging herself.
She lay on her back staring at the sky, watching the clouds drift by overhead. Occasionally, her choice of object to lie on would shift slightly, as the Nokk moved idly around a narrow, shallow river, nosing at rocks and the way the water streamed, and she smiled at the way she could feel his watery hide washing against her hair, and the cool ripples of his body under her back.
She let one arm hang down his side, fingers swirling little snowflakes into existence, and she listened to Bruni jump up and nip at the ice, listened to his happy little purrs, occasionally felt a spark of warmth when he jumped too high and got too excited, and then Gale would swirl past her and tease her hair into ringlets, and whisk away, with a cool whisper against Elsa's skin.
And that was love.
That was what she fell in love with – life, and herself, and spirits, and the Earth, and it didn't matter that it had taken so long to discover where she was meant to be and how she was meant to fall in love, because she had done it now, and nothing could change it.
Love was a gentle lapping river and cool air, sensations that blanketed her and made her feel safe and in control. And that, that was the real power of love. Because she had known for years that it was the answer to controlling her powers, and while she had grasped it, and understood it, there had still been an element of doubt, a feeling that she didn't quite have everything controlled.
She did now.
Now there was no doubt left, now she had everything perfectly controlled, perfectly understood, and the answer was still love, had always been love. It was just . . . love for herself.
That's what she had been missing.
She reached a hand back, fingers dragging through her hair, the backs of her nails pushing through and running brief lines down the Nokk's hide, and he responded with a contented rumble. It drew a smile from her, and she closed her eyes and just breathed in the moment, utterly and bonelessly gratified.
And she finally, finally understood what Anna meant. Because she wanted to keep these moments with her forever. She wanted this life to be around her all the time. She was happy with its presence, with her existence, and she felt whole.
This moment, this life, this feeling.
This was the answer she had been waiting for her whole life.
She fell in love differently to everyone around her.
And that was okay; she knew that now, and it just meant that she had to figure it out on her own, and the things that applied to other people didn't apply to her.
But that was okay.
Because she knew now, different though she was, alone but not lonely, only her, that she was ready to learn.