"Good morning girls, did you sleep well?" Bulda asked immediately when Elsa and Anna entered the dining room.
"Yes, thank you for asking," Anna smiled and casted a look for Elsa. Elsa just nodded, agreeing.
Everyone else was already on the dinner table. Elsa and Anna had both wanted to shower before breakfast, so they were a little late. Anna had helped Elsa with her hair for so long, that she hadn't had time to blow her own. Now her wet hair was trickling down to the back of her shirt, but Anna didn't mind. It was so nice that Elsa allowed her to do her hair.
Elsa sat down next to Kristoff, opposite to Olaf. After sitting down, she seemed conflicted, like she was unsure if it was okay for her to sit next to Kristoff when Anna was there. Her posture was frigid and she looked as if she had made a terrible mistake. Before Elsa could get up and apologize, or do something else Elsa-like, Anna sat down next to her, opposite to Bulda, and smiled.
"I swear, Elsa, you're trying to steal my girlfriend. First I find her sleeping against your shoulder on the motel room, then she basically begs to sleep with you in your room, instead of mine—," Kristoff started listing, but Anna interrupted him.
"Hey! I didn't beg. I asked nicely," she pouted.
"You begged," Kristoff stated. "And now this, I don't even get to eat my breakfast with my girlfriend," Kristoff moaned dramatically.
"I can move," Elsa offered quickly and started seeking for her crutches.
Anna put her hand on the crutches to disable Elsa from taking them. "Don't you dare," she said to Elsa. Then she fixed her eyes on Kristoff and smirked: "Quit being such a sore loser."
"Anna just wants to sleep with Elsa 'cuz you smell like a wet dog," Olaf grinned, his mouth full of porridge.
Bulda chastised the child for talking with his mouth full, but looked fairly amused. Kristoff glared his little brother and Pabbie looked indifferent. Anna, on the other hand, almost spit her cranberry juice out, and even Elsa was trying to hide her smirk by looking down.
"Hey, I don't smell like a wet dog!" Kristoff protested.
"I love you, Kris, but you kinda do," Anna said, laughing. For that, Elsa gave her an uncharacteristic grin with a hint of mischief in it. Anna couldn't help but mirror it. Kristoff pouted like child.
After Anna, Elsa started lapping porridge on her plate. While her hands were occupied, Kristoff pushed handful of pills in front of her, trying to be as discreet as possible, all the while holding up a conversation. Anna understood that the act wasn't meant for her eyes, so she ignored it, as well as she could. She couldn't help but see Elsa carefully examine every single pill, before starting to pop them in her mouth. Elsa looked uncomfortable, as if she was doing something highly embarrassing, in public.
"So Elsa, how's your therapy going? Is the medication working?" Bulda asked suddenly, after she noticed Elsa swallowing the last pill. Elsa almost choked on water she was flushing the pills with. And Anna thought she had no tact.
"F-f-f-fine," Elsa stuttered, looking mortified. Kristoff looked horrified, also, his mouth hanging a little.
Bulda didn't seem to get a hint. So before she could say anything else, Anna rushed to help Elsa out of the uncomfortable situation the best way she could, by drawing the attention to herself. "Therapists, am I right!" Anna sighed dramatically, looking at Elsa, trying to detect if she was okay with Anna's tactic.
She was frowning, but looked a little curious, so Anna went on, exaggerating her story as much as she could with her tone and movements of hands: "One time, I told my parents that if they wouldn't let me go to one concert I really wanted to go, it would damage my mental health so much that I would need therapy for the rest of my life. And they would have to pay for it, naturally, as they had caused it."
Anna kept a small pause. Long enough to let the story sink in, short enough to not to let anyone ask questions. She glanced Elsa, she looked grateful enough for the distraction Anna was causing. "So then my parents just shooed me to my room, told me that I wasn't allowed to go. I was so angry that I slammed my door and threw every single book in the bookshelf against my door, to let my parents know my rage. The next day, there was a strange lady with my father, greeting me. Apparently, my parents got me a therapist, like I had asked for. I was forced to have a meeting with her every single week for a year!" Anna yelled and threw her arms in the air dramatically.
"That wasn't even the worst part. It was that the whole therapist thing was completely bullcrap. My parents were paying for her to sit there and nod emphatically to anything I had to say, she wasn't there to help me at all. I mean, is that even legal? Aren't therapists like required to try and help their patients? I had to beg my parents to not to force me to have those sessions anymore. And they were so smug about it too. Are parents meant to annoy their children? Because I swear, my parents knew how to twist my words to bite me on the arse later."
The ending of the story was calculated, it was to move the conversation from its tracks. And it was working, soon they were talking about parenting and other different topics, anything else but Elsa's therapy sessions she was clearly unwilling to share about. Maybe someday, Elsa would like to share about her traumatic childhood, which Anna assumed was the cause for her therapy, but that day wasn't today.
Rest of the dinner went nicely. No other incidents happened, not until Olaf had already ran off and Pabbie had adjourned for his studies. Anna was helping Elsa up, and Kristoff was also standing up when Bulda stopped them with her voice: "Nope, you're not going anywhere. I think we have something to talk about."
Her voice was uncharacteristically strict, and all the three of the young adults stopped their tracks immediately. Elsa almost fell over because of her state of freeze and bad grip on a crutch. Luckily Anna was there to catch her in time. All of their hearts were pounding in anticipation, like children waiting to be scolded.
Then Bulda pointed Elsa, whose face immediately drained from all color, until Bulda spoke again: "Not you dear, you may go. I'm sure it wasn't your idea." Elsa hesitantly started to retire. "You two, we're going to have some serious talk about car safety, right now. Did you think I forgot?" Bulda told to the remaining two.
Kristoff and Anna looked at each other and gulped. They were in some serious trouble.
After some hardcore scolding she had received, Anna walked into the living room. Elsa was sitting on the couch, caressing Olaf's hair absent mindedly. Olaf was sitting on the floor, Sven next to him. Olaf's arm was casually on the huge dog's back, making the short limb look even tinier. They were watching cartoons. It was strange, in an amusing way, to see the normally serious Elsa laughing at something that was meant for kids. It was actually really nice to see Elsa laugh, she rarely did that, now that Anna was thinking about it.
"Hey you," Anna said softly, catching the pair's attention. They both turned to look at her.
"Was mom hard on you?" Elsa asked, sympathetically.
"Yeah. Reminded me of my own parents actually. I didn't know your mom could be so strict. Maybe they should meet when my parents come here in fall break. Anyway, we're going back home with a train," Anna told nonchalantly with a shrug of her shoulders.
Before Elsa could say anything, Kristoff came in the room with Pabbie and announced: "And now we are watching childhood videos, so buckle up and enjoy the ride."
"Oh no. Please no," Elsa pleaded.
"Oh yes," Kristoff huffed. "This is our punishment, mom's getting creative," Kristoff grouched and helped Pabbie down on the armchair.
"What am I punished for?" Elsa cried out with a high pitched voice. "Have mercy," she moaned pitifully, trying to fold herself to be as small as possible.
"C'mon you two, stop being such drama queens. This is not a punishment, they are really cute videos. So shut your mouths and lets watch these," Bulda entered the room and hushed her children's complains.
The she proceeded to put the cassette in. Anna sat next to Elsa and Kristoff sat next to her. Bulda scooped up Olaf and brought him to sit with her, on the other couch. When the video started Kristoff groaned loudly and Elsa hid her face behind her hands.
The first video was from a beautiful summer day. They were on the beach of a small lake. Kristoff, who was fourteen at the time, was standing ankles deep in water. There were two kids swimming, but it was hard for Anna to really see what they looked like. The camera was focused on Elsa's face, who was sitting on the towel with a small boy.
Elsa was sickly skinny and her naturally pale skin looked waxy and unhealthy. She looked a little strange with her almost white eyebrows and eyelashes. Nowadays, Elsa colored them to be darker, it was different to see them with their natural color. Elsa was fully clothed with a dress that covered her from neck to halfway of her shins, despite it being seemingly hot day. The boy next to her was unfamiliar to Anna, but he was dressed in shorts and t-shirt. They had a book between them, that they had most likely been reading before they were interrupted.
"Elsa and Isaac, don't you want to go to swim with others at all?" a deep male voice asked.
Isaac just shook his head. Elsa answered with her blue eyes wide open, looking like a skittish little rabbit: "No, sir."
The man started saying something, but suddenly someone was screaming farther away, maybe Kristoff. Something was flying towards Elsa's head. For a second Anna was able to see Elsa's head turn to see the object and her face twist in horror. The man with the camera managed to see and catch the flying object, before it made contact with Elsa's head, but then the camera dropped.
"Let this be the last time I ever see you do anything like this!" the man hollered, but the vision was black. He was rushing away from the camera, yelling at someone, but then the video cut and Anna was a little confused.
"Those were the twins we fostered while back. They threw a rock at Elsa. Though, I think they were actually trying to hit Isaac. Luckily the twins were reunited with their own family soon after. They were real trouble, those two. Isaac on the other hand, found a nice adoptive parents little over a year later," Kristoff explained to Anna.
"We took another boy and his infant brother soon after Isaac left and then we got Olaf. When my husband died, God bless his soul, we found a new foster home for the boys. I couldn't offer them the care they needed anymore. But we decided to keep Olaf, special children like him are harder to relocate and he's such a sweetheart, this place would be so empty without him," Bulda said and hugged the child tightly. Olaf just giggled happily.
Then the next video started. At first Anna could barely see anything, the camera was shaking and there was something blocking the vision. But then it straightened up and Anna saw that they were in an ice ring. Kristoff was in front of the camera, looking quite sour. Anna glanced the upper right corner to see the year the video was taken, Kristoff was fifteen in that, though he looked a little younger. There was still quite a lot of baby fat on his cheeks and his body hadn't shaped out yet.
"Do you have to video this? I don't want anyone to see me with these," video-Kristoff grumbled, and lifted his legs to show what he didn't want others to see on him. They were skates for figure skating. That had probably been a hard blow for young Kristoff's masculinity. Anna had to bite her lip to stop herself from grinning.
"The dance you've been training is so good, we have to record it. Off you go," a voice said, that Anna assumed was Bulda's. Then arms appeared to push Kristoff farther on the ice.
Muttering disgruntledly something incoherent Kristoff skated off. The camera followed him and soon she could see another person on the ice, waiting for Kristoff. It was Elsa. There barely was any of that graceful attractiveness that Elsa seemed to so easily possess these days. Younger Elsa looked awkward, she was most likely in her full height, but her figure hadn't caught up with her growth yet. She looked like Slender Man with her long and skinny limbs attached to her scrawny body. She was wearing a light skating jacket that hugged her body enough to show that there wasn't really anything yet.
Elsa's posture was rigid and she looked like she was trying to make herself disappear into herself. Elsa wasn't really the picture of confidence today either, but the child Elsa looked so insecure about herself that Anna just wanted to go and give her a hug. But then the music started and the kids started to dance on the ice. Kristoff still looked awkward, though not clumsy. But Elsa, Elsa looked like an angel, flying on that ice.
"Isn't our Elsa the most gracious thing on the ice?" Bulda asked Anna, her voice laced with awe.
"She truly is," Anna breathed out, unable to tear her eyes apart from the screen. "How aren't you in Olympics, Elsa? Or are you?"
"Oh the poor thing has the worst case of stage fright. She only ever had one small competition, and she ended up so sick on stomach that she had to withdraw in the last minute," Bulda explained for Elsa. "She just skates for herself. This is from the phase when she really wanted to try figure skating with a pair, but she didn't want to skate with anyone she didn't know. Kristoff, always the great brother, offered to be her pair."
"I think he regretted his chivalry," Anna grinned and glanced at Kristoff. In the video, young-Kristoff was just lifting his sister for a spin. Kristoff was a little shorter than Elsa, but much bulkier than his scrawny sister, so it didn't look too hard.
"He definitely complained a lot, especially about videoing it. But never once did he say that he wanted to stop skating with Elsa," Bulda said, looking warmly at her son.
"It made Elsa so happy," Kristoff said, as if he was defending himself. "Besides, the phase wasn't too long. Elsa realized really fast that she was better alone and could do less limited choreographies."
The video ended with Elsa and Kristoff holding hands, standing next to each other and bowing to the camera. It was all so very cute that Anna couldn't help the long "aww" escaping her lips. And so they kept watching all kinds of videos all the way to the graduation of the siblings.
Anna and Elsa were in Elsa's room, getting ready for the bed. Anna was rubbing Elsa's sore shoulder gently. Elsa hadn't complained about the pain that the crutches were causing for her injured arm, but Anna could easily see how Elsa avoided doing anything with her right hand. She had hung it limply on her side, shoulder tensed, and Anna couldn't help but offer to massage it a little bit. Elsa had refused, of course, but Anna was good at convincing. Judging from the pleased little sighs Elsa couldn't keep in, Anna assumed she enjoyed the rub.
Their nice moment was ruined by Anna's phone ringing. "Damn it, my mom's Skyping me," Anna said, twisting her body as if looking for something, unsure how to proceed.
"That's okay, I'll leave to give you some privacy," Elsa smiled and got up.
"No, no, no. It's your room, you don't have to leave," Anna assured.
"It's alright, Anna. I'll just go to speak with Pabbie for a while. See you later," Elsa said calmly and left.
After the door was closed, Anna pressed the answer button. "Hey mom."
"Are going to make it a habit to let me call for you forever, before answering?" Iduna asked sternly with her mother-tone.
"No mother. I was with Elsa, she wanted me to have some privacy, so I waited till she was gone, before answering," Anna explained, suddenly feeling a little tired.
"Oh, that's nice of her. You're with Kristoff's family now, right honey?" Anna nodded, so she asked the second question: "Have you liked it there?"
"Yes, mom. It's wonderful in here. The house is lovely. Kristoff's mom is so nice to me," Anna decided to exclude the part where they were scolded for driving to North with a car for two. There was no reason to worry her parents too and get another scolding. She had a feeling that her parents wouldn't end it with a cute family video watching time. So Anna just kept gushing: "Pabbie is so smart, I think he's smarter than you and dad even. He's an old doctor and he seems to know everything. And Olaf is so cute! He's eight-years-old, but he's so tiny. He's actually a dwarf—wait. Is it okay for me to say dwarf? Is it offensive?"
"I don't know, honey," Iduna said with the voice that she used when she tried to stop Anna's rambling, but Anna was too far gone.
"Anyway, he's so cute. And they have like a ton of cute cousins too! The family is so big, I love it! And Elsa is letting me sleep in her room. She kind of hates sharing a room with other people, but she agreed to share with me. I might've bribed her with some chocolates, but mom, we have so nice time together. Elsa is amazing! She lets me do her hair, which is like—mom, her hair is like wow. And then we eat chocolate together, and she listens when I ramble about things. I can't wait till you meet her in fall! She's like a sister—," Anna explained excitedly, until Iduna interrupted her.
"She's not your sister," Iduna said with a cold tone, so uncharacteristic for her that Anna was immediately threw off the loop.
"I know, mom, I meant—," Anna tried again, but Iduna didn't let her explain.
"She's not your sister, and she will never be. I want you to stop this nonsense about sisters right now. End of discussion."
"I—um—okay," Anna stammered, unsure of what to say.
"I really need to go, honey. Let's talk about this later, I have work to do. I'll send your love to your father, okay. I love you, bye," her mother hurried with the excuses and goodbyes.
"Okay, bye," Anna said to the silent line.
She sat quietly alone for a while, until Elsa knocked the door. Soon she peeked in, after Anna didn't answer anything.
"Are you done?" she asked.
Anna only nodded. Elsa slid in the room, barely making any noise. "Was it a bad conversation?" Anna nodded her head. "Do—do you want to talk about it?" Anna shook her head. "W-w-would you like me to—um—read for you?" Elsa asked, feeling unsure about herself. She wasn't good at comforting others. Kristoff read to her when she was upset, and it made her feel better, maybe it would work on Anna too.
Anna seemed to think so too, as she enthusiastically nodded her head for the suggestion. So Elsa took the Brothers Lionheart from the bookshelf. It had been her favorite book as a child, she had read it over and over again. She had spent so many hours of thinking her mother waiting for her in Nangijala, and that someday she would send her a beautiful white dove as a message. She never did. Her mother never came, not as a dove or as an angel. She was dead and gone.
Elsa shook the sad memories away and popped herself gracefully down to the bed. Then she made way for Anna and patted the bed. Anna seemed unsure, she even asked if Elsa really wanted her on her bed. Elsa just nodded and smiled. Then they cuddled in a way that felt even more intimate as the one in the motel room.
"I've never heard of this book. What is it about?" Anna asked.
"It's about a sickly boy whose brother dies saving him from a burning house. He misses his brother dearly, but when he finally succumbs to his illness, he meets his brother again in afterlife. It's a place called Nangijala," Elsa explained carefully the main plot.
"Elsa, what do you think happens after death?"
"You wouldn't like my answer," Elsa dodged the question.
"I want to hear it anyway," Anna pressed.
"I believe that there's nothing. Life is a meaningless bundle of sufferings and joys between nonexistence. There was nothing before life and nothing after, just this one life," Elsa tried to enlighten her dark thoughts as much as she possibly could with words.
"Wow, that's dark," Anna pointed out.
"I said you wouldn't like my answer."
"Oh I liked it. Even if I don't agree, now I know more about you," Anna smiled at her.
It felt so good Anna said that to Elsa. For a moment, Elsa wondered was that light feeling in her chest happiness. She just couldn't help but return the smile. Then she started reading.
A/N My birthday is in two days, and I'm wondering, am I too old to write Frozen fanfics? But the fluff between Elsa and Anna is just so cute, I can't help it. I love me some good angst, but it's the cute moments between angst that really makes me want to write. Just don't let my friends know that I'm not really over fangirling Frozen, and we'll all good. If they ask, I'm doing taxes and other adult stuff. There's really some stuff I'm itching to get to write, but I can't rush, it's killing me. Anyway, see you in the next chapter, which is hopefully up within a week. Bye!