AN: I hope y'all enjoy the chapter, and don't forget to tip your friendly neighborhood ice kitty on the way out!
Elsa returned to consciousness in stages, in brief pockets of semi-awareness. The first time, she had a vague, weightless sense of being carried, and could hear someone talking close by. She couldn't place the voice of the speaker or make out any of the words they were saying, but they sounded worried. Perhaps even scared. She had no idea what they were talking about, though, and before she could gather enough energy to even try to figure it out, the warmth of inky blackness dragged her back down, and the voice faded away.
The next time, she woke with more urgency, with a hand gripping hers and another on her shoulder, shaking her and encouraging her to wake. Elsa tried to open her eyes but it felt as though they had been glued together. A muffled groan rolled past her lips as she tried once more to work them open, this time succeeding. Her vision was blurry and her eyelids felt weighed down. She blinked slowly, struggling to bring the world around her into focus. The hand had moved to the back of her neck, and there was a blurry shape of a person sitting in front of her, a voice talking to her. She had no idea why she felt so weak, so drained. She frowned, trying to remember what had happened while at the same time fighting the desire to close her eyes and return to the bliss of sleep. But the voice was insistent, like what the speaker was saying was important and she should pay attention. As Elsa struggled to focus, their words finally cut through the fog.
"Elsa, I know you're tired, and probably a little confused, but I need you to listen to me, okay?"
Anna's voice. Anna's hand, moving her own and pressing it against the unnaturally cold, solid ground.
"You left a trail of ice when we left the longhouse, and I need you to melt it. Can you do that?"
Melt ice? Of course, she could do that. That was easy. Elsa's frown deepened, not understanding why it was so important, but if Anna needed her to do it then she would. She pressed her free hand against the rough rock at her back and leaned forward. She could feel the ice under her hand, the frosted trail she had created while unconscious. She focused the best she could and followed the frozen path back to its starting point, then commanded the ice to melt. It responded accordingly, but pain immediately flared in Elsa's right wrist and she nearly lost her concentration. The bite of pain worked to clear away some of the cobwebs in her head, and she dug her teeth into her bottom lip and doubled down, refusing to let up until the entire trail of ice had melted away, even as the stinging burn in her arm increased.
Elsa sagged against the rock as the pain in her arm died down. She felt tired and achy all over, like she was just getting over a serious illness. She laid her head back and allowed her eyes to fall closed. The fog in her mind continued to slowly clear despite the persistent exhaustion dragging at her, and the events of the day trickled back like drips from a leaky faucet. She remembered the argument in the drawing room, the Sirma, the Longhouse, Tyr—
Her eyes shot open. "Anna." Relief flooded through Elsa as her gaze fell on her younger sister. Anna looked worn, tired, and grimy, but unharmed.
Anna met her gaze with a weary but genuine smile, then looked down. As worry and confusion crossed her face, Elsa realized her sister was holding her right hand, and that Anna's own hand was trembling. "Elsa, what is this?"
She lifted their entwined hands so that Elsa could see for herself there was a piece of silverish metal wrapped around her right wrist. The band was tarnished and simple looking but held a deep blue stone in the center. On the stone was an intricate looking silver triangle, each tip with a smaller triangle behind it and three more interlocking triangles at its center. Looping knot work surrounded the outside in a circle, and the stone appeared to be faintly glowing.
"I don't..." She remembered the scuffle with Tyr, something snapping around her wrist and the sudden blinding pain that had followed. She remembered losing control of her magic, the feeling of ice tearing through the sinew and muscle of Tyr's arm. She remembered a flash of visible bone, of blood, of his pained scream. "Oh god," Elsa ripped her hand from her sister's grasp and covered her mouth as her stomach cramped painfully.
That was all the warning she could give Anna before she doubled over to the side, and what food she had eaten that day quickly became part of the landscape. It didn't take long for her to empty her stomach, leaving her gagging on the acidic taste left behind, she was aware of her sister's hand on her back, rubbing small circles while keeping her hair safe from the mess. They stayed that way for a long moment until Elsa was sure her stomach was done rebelling, then she turned gingerly to lean against the rock face and pulled her knees up. She kept one arm wrapped around her stomach, as if that would keep it settled, while propping an elbow on her knees and laying her forehead against her open palm.
The Sirma wanted to use her, as some kind of weapon, to win their war. She couldn't even stomach the memory of what little damage she'd managed to cause in the scuffle. It was ironic and a little funny, and Elsa would have laughed if she had anywhere near the energy for it.
Anna laid a tentative hand on her arm and squeezed softly. "Elsa?"
"I don't know," she said softly, in answer to her sister's earlier question. She dropped her right arm from her head and turned her wrist to inspect the cuff. "Tyr - we fought. He had me pinned and got this on my wrist right, before I—" Elsa swallowed thickly, trying not think again about what she'd done to his arm.
"But why?" Anna's hand ghosted over the cuff, not quite touching it. "What is it for?"
"Whatever it is, I doubt it's anything good."
Elsa looked up to find Alarik standing over them. He knelt and wrapped his cool fingers around Elsa's, gently rotating her wrist to study the cuff for himself. He closed the fingers of his other hand around the softly glowing gem and tugged. A painful jolt ran along her arm and she yelped, jerking her hand out of his. She leveled a glare at him, even though she knew he hadn't meant to cause her pain.
Alarik held his hands up. "Sorry." He leaned in and squinted, but didn't touch the stone or band again. "It doesn't seem to have any sort of clasp or lock on it. Almost like it was created in one piece as it was put there."
"Can you freeze it off?" Anna asked, her voice a little loud in the tight space, her eyes wide with renewed worry.
Alarik looked to her. Elsa cocked her head.
Anna waved a hand. "I mean, metal gets brittle when exposed to below freezing temperatures, right?"
Alarik raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting. "I didn't take you for a metallurgist."
Anna blinked. "I—don't know what that means." She shook her head, brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Elsa couldn't help but notice the faint tremor in her sister's hand, the anxiety Anna was struggling, and failing, to conceal. "Kristoff was teaching me a little about ice harvesting, and he said that it's a problem they have to watch out for when the temperature drops too low."
Elsa chewed on her bottom lip and looked down at the cuff, remembering with painful clarity the excruciating burn when she used her powers at the longhouse, and just moments earlier when she melted the ice trail she'd left. "I'm not sure."
"It's worth a try thought, right?" Anna pressed, wringing her hands.
Alarik shook his head, looking pensive. "I don't know. It's clearly got some sort of anti-tampering...characteristics to it. Maybe we should wait until we have a better idea of what it's doing before we just start trying things."
Elsa inspected the glowing stone, the symbols etched into its surface. The markings looked familiar, but she couldn't recall where she might have seen them before. "It's doing something to my magic," she told the others.
"It's doing more than that."
Anna's voice pulled at her drifting attention. Her sister's tone was full of worry, and it sounded like she was barely holding it together.
"Elsa, it's doing something to you."
Elsa frowned and jerked her chin, not quite understanding what her sister meant.
Anna roughly grabbed her left wrist, her fingers pressing into Elsa's skin. "Your pulse is racing despite the fact you haven't even been standing in the last hour. You're pale, and—Elsa, you're warm, like really warm," Her voice raised in volume and pitch as she spoke, until she sounded near hysterics.
Elsa covered her sister's hand with her free one. "It's okay, breathe, Anna." She took a deep breath of her own, working to rein in her own worries and fears and pushing the growing exhaustion to the side. She needed to be calm and in control; she was an older sister and a Queen, and she didn't have the luxury to be anything else. She rolled her lips. "If we don't find the answer here, maybe the trolls will have one for us." She squeezed her sister's hand. "We'll figure this out."
Anna nodded and sagged, like Elsa's words had taken away some of her anxious tension. "Right," she said. "Okay."
Elsa tore her gaze away and looked around for the first time since waking, taking in the rapidly fading sunlight and the thick woods surrounding them. She frowned. "Where is here?"
Dusk fell over the forest as the three moved quietly through the thick underbrush, and with it, a thunderstorm. While lightning flashed and thunder boomed nearby, the rainfall was light, barely more than a drizzle, but enough to make the uncomfortable trek even more miserable. Between the intermittent lightning and the full moon peeking from behind the cloud cover, there was just enough light to allow them to see the way ahead as they picked a path through the woods, though they still needed to tread carefully.
Sioaskard was relatively close, but it would still take them several hours to reach the fortress. Before setting off from where they had paused at the side of the stream, there was a short debate over whether they should bunker down for the night and wait until morning, due to how dark woods became at night and the fact that passing through was a dangerous feat for even a well-prepared group. Their group was anything but well-prepared right now. In the end, Elsa made the call to continue through the night, as she had had enough sitting around, and they could not afford to waste any time.
Following the cliffside, they walked single-file, Alarik in the front to clear the path and Anna taking up the rear. With Elsa between them, Anna could keep an eye on her older sister who, despite her tightlipped reassurance, seemed to be having increasing difficulty with her magic.
"Elsa," she whispered, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder as frost once more begin to spread out across the ground.
Elsa startled and looked down with a heavy exhale. It had been a few hours since they escaped the longhouse and every fifteen minutes, almost like clockwork, Anna watched as her sister's posture start to sag and her steps slowed, then ice would start to leak out across the muddy path. It had almost become routine. Elsa bit her lip and extended her left hand toward the ground. The stone inlaid on the cuff glowed brightly as the frost slowly vanished.
Anna's worry increased each time this played out, as each necessary use of her magic seemed to sap more of Elsa's strength. She looked past her sister's hunched frame to where Alarik stood waiting. They both knew the best thing to do at this point was to reach the fort as safety and as quickly as they could. After that, they could figure out what to do next.
Silence fell over the area as the group pressed on, but for the sounds of the forest around them. They had only been walking for ten minutes before Elsa stumbled and fell to the ground with a harsh "shit." As she struck the dirt, ice burst across the forest floor.
Anna's eyes widened. She didn't think she had ever heard her sister curse before. By the time she recovered and reached her sister's side, Elsa had pulled herself up onto her knees and was bracing her herself on her palms, her head hanging limp.
"Elsa?" Anna knelt next to her as Alarik joined on her other side.
"I'm fine," her sister growled breathlessly.
"Sure." Over Elsa's bowed head, Anna locked gazes with Alarik, who was obviously just as worried as she was. Anna laid her hand on her sister's shoulder, feeling the muscles tremble beneath her palm. "Maybe we should stop for a bit?"
Alarik squinted into the dark woods that stretched in front of them. "There should be a rock shelter along the cliff here. We can bunker down there for a few hours. Regroup. If we're lucky, the Northmen will have assumed we headed back toward Valle and will be searching for us to the south."
Elsa shook her head. "No. I'm fine, really. We should keep going."
Anna opened her mouth to protest but slammed it back shut as heat rose in her cheeks. She really didn't want to argue – not here, at least – but she felt an overwhelming desire to smack the stubbornness out of her older sister. God forbid the woman admit to being human, just once. "Well, I'm tired," Anna declared while trying to keep her voice down. "And cold, and wet. I got up at an ungodly hour this morning, and it's been a long day, and I could use a few hours' rest before we continue on."
Elsa looked at her. Despite the fact they both knew it was nothing more than a thin excuse to force her to take a break, guilt fell across her face.
"Good," Alarik said, before Elsa had a chance to offer her opinion. "I'll scout ahead, see if I can find anything. Will you be okay here?" He asked, his focus on Anna alone.
Anna nodded, sagging in relief. Alarik disappeared from view, the night quickly swallowing his form. The sisters sat in silence, and after a moment Anna realized Elsa hadn't moved at all. She turned to her sister and saw Elsa's head hanging low, her breaths coming in short puffs. She was clearly in some sort of physical distress, not to mention whatever mental toll it was taking to fight for control of her magic.
Guilt rose in Anna's chest, squeezing her heart. They wouldn't even be in this situation if it wasn't for her stubborn need to believe the best in people, her desire to help them. "Elsa," she started in a small voice.
Elsa shook her head. "Anna, it's okay," she replied, like she already knew what Anna wanted to say.
"No, it's not." Anna shifted her position, keeping a hand on Elsa's shoulder as she slid around to see her sister's face better. "This is my fault. I should have listened to you, and now you're hurt and Alarik is hurt and—"
"Anna." Elsa interrupted her ramble. She pulled herself upright and placed an oddly warm hand against the side of Anna's face. "Don't ever change."
"What?" She wasn't making any sense. Anna frowned, worry over Elsa's condition twisting her chest.
"I mean it," Elsa insisted. "Should you have listened to me? Yes. believe it or not, I do know what I'm doing sometimes, but . . ." A frown pulled at her lips as her gaze drifted, like she forgot what she was saying. For a long moment, raindrops striking the leaves overhead was the only sound to break the silence, before Elsa seemed to find the words that she was looking for. "Anna, this isn't your fault."
"How can you say that?"
"Because I am older and wiser and know everything."
The unexpected reply caused Anna to snort.
Elsa squeezed the side of her neck. "I know it's not your fault, because it's clear that the Sirma, that Tyr, never wanted assistance from Arendelle, this—" Elsa held up her right hand and displayed the faintly glowing cuff, "—this isn't something you bring with you while asking for help. They came prepared, with a plan to force my hand. If they hadn't gone through you, they would have found another way. Taking you hostage was just the shortest line between two points."
Anna scrunched up her face. The explanation made sense, but still left her feeling like nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. Maybe to Erik, that's all she had been. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."
"I'm just glad you're okay." Elsa shook her head, drops of rain falling from her hair. "I was so scared that they were going to hurt you. Anna, I can't lose you."
Anna leaned forward, pulling her older sister into a fierce hug. "I can't lose you, either. I don't know what I'd do if—"
Elsa pulled back just enough to reach up and brush a thumb against Anna's cheek. Anna wasn't sure whether it was rainwater or tears her sister wiped away.
"Hey, it's okay. And I meant what I said." Elsa lifted her other hand, cradling Anna's face. She lowered her chin and met Anna's gaze. "Don't ever change. Don't let what the Sirma did today ruin that stubborn optimism. You have no idea how much I need it."
Anna smiled gratefully and wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulders. Elsa tensed at the contact but quickly relaxed, laying her head on Anna's shoulder. They sat like that in the rain and mud for an unknown amount of time before Anna heard movement in the forest in front of them, from the direction Alarik had disappeared.
Anna tensed, arm tightening around Elsa. She was prepared to protect her sister if the need arose. As the sound drew nearer, she poised to jump to her feet, only to have relief flood through her as Alarik emerged from the darkness, leaving her lightheaded.
He knelt in front of the sisters. "There's a shallow cave not far up," he said, keeping his voice low. "The entrance is hidden by thick vegetation. I think it would be safe to bunker down in there for a bit." He pressed a hand against his side, a wince flashing across his face.
Anna nodded and shifted to stand when Elsa's head lolled forward, and she realized the older woman had fallen asleep. "Elsa," she said softly, raising a hand to gently jostle her sister and encourage her to wake.
Alarik held up a hand. "Don't." He moved to Elsa's opposite side. "I've got her." Carefully, he lifted the slumbering Queen into his arms and stood even more gingerly. "The cave isn't far. No need to wake her."
Anna nodded and rose. She followed closely behind Alarik as he led the way through the darkness, thinking back on her conversation with Elsa. She still couldn't help feeling bad about how things had played out but was relieved her sister was no longer angry with her, nor did she blame her. Before long, Alarik stopped in front of a section of cliffside obscured by thick bushes and hanging vines. He ensured Elsa's head was secure and then ducked, disappearing between the vegetation.
Anna's eyes widened in surprise. Even standing right in front of it, she couldn't see a discernible inlet behind the plants. She followed after Alarik and, once her eyes adjusted, found exactly what he had described. A shallow cave, low enough that she had to stoop, but deep enough that Alarik would be able to stretch out if he chose to. "How did you find this place?"
Alarik smiled as he knelt. "With well-honed hunting skills and keen observation."
Anna lifted an eyebrow.
He settled Elsa carefully onto the ground. "Or I may have tripped on a root and tried to catch myself on the rock face only to find it missing. Really, it's hard to say which."
Anna snorted softly. "Uh-huh." She lowered herself into a sit next to her sister, lifting Elsa's shoulders so that her head rested on Anna's legs. She brushed the wet bangs from Elsa's face, her hand lingering a moment on her sister's forehead. Elsa had always been cool to the touch, something Anna attributed to her ice magic, but now she felt warm, almost feverishly so. Anna released a shaky breath, running her fingers over the wet platinum locks. Now that she was sitting down, now that she was still and could catch her breath and rein in her racing thoughts, she felt overwhelmed by the day's events, by everything that had happened and the danger they were technically still in. Tears prickled at her eyes and she struggled to hold them back, wanting to be strong.
"You know," Alarik said, a hand pressed to his side as he sat across from her, drawing Anna out of her spiraling thoughts. "You're kind of a legend among the military."
Anna's head snapped up. "What?"
"For what you did during the Queen's Winter."
Anna snorted. "You mean for being the cause of it?"
"No." Alarik shook his head. "For going after the Queen without hesitation. For putting yourself between her and a sword. That takes a lot of bravery. You saved Arendelle in more than one way. Not many can lay claim to that."
Anna shifted uncomfortably, causing Elsa to scrunch up her face and groan a small sound of discomfort. She brushed a fingertip down her sister's nose, in the same way their mother used to, until the lines of pain smoothed and Elsa relaxed once more. She felt Alarik's gaze on her and shrugged, suddenly feeling uncomfortable but not knowing what to say. It wasn't the first time she had heard something like that, but that didn't mean she believed it. She knew it wasn't true, but people often remembered only the parts of a story they chose to.
Alarik sighed. "You give yourself too little credit."
Anna chewed on her lip. "It wasn't hard," she said, finally giving voice to thoughts she had been harboring since the event. "It's easy to be brave when you have nothing to lose," she finished softly.
"What are you talking about?" Alarik asked with a frown.
Anna shook her head, keeping her gaze on where her sister lay on her lap, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest with each breath. "Elsa and I had been estranged for thirteen years. Our parents were gone, and I didn't even have any real duty to fulfill, except to be the spare." She lifted a shoulder. "It's easy to risk everything when you have nothing."
A large, warm hand landed on her knee, drawing her gaze upward. "You know that's not true, right?" Alarik said. "That you had nothing. That you weren't anything but the spare."
"It doesn't matter if it was true or not. It's what I believed."
"And now?"
A smile ghosted over Anna's lips. "Now? Now, the gates are open. Now, I have all of Arendelle, and Olaf, and Sven. I have Kristoff. But more than anything, I have my sister back." Her smile faded, gaze drifting to the lightly glowing cuff wrapped around Elsa's wrist. "But now, I don't know how to be brave, because I'm terrified. What if something happens to them? What if I lose them? You're injured, the Sirma are after Elsa, I don't know what that cuff is doing to her—" Anna pressed her lips together as hot tears welled once more. "I don't think I can be brave because now, I have so much to lose."
Alarik pushed himself up from the ground and slid to the opposite side of the cave, sitting down heavily next to Anna, his shoulder pressing against hers. "You know, being brave is not the absence of fear. Being brave means feeling fear, and doubt, and insecurity, and deciding that something else—" he lifted his chin toward Elsa, "—is more important. And remember, you're not alone. You have me, and your sister, and all of Arendelle."
Anna sniffed and turned to him with a watery smile. She felt a bit better, though still scared. "Thank you."
He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her tight squeeze. "You should get some sleep now. I'll keep watch."
