Disclaimer: The chapter's title is a line taken from the song "Live Your Story", by Auli'i Cravalho. The verses in this chapter are from the song "Apeman", by The Kinks.

chapter v: dream, see, write, live your story

At first, teaching Elsa how to sing had seemed to be a fun idea that would provide her best friend with something to do when Anna wasn't around. She knew the other girl was doing homework even on her time off, but the fact that she was still unable read the material or write the exercises kept her limitations in her mind even when she was trying to focus on her favourite subjects.

Music, though, had been their safe haven. They had put a lot of effort into prepared the classes, which was in itself a nice enough distraction, serving to prove that they were going through the right direction.

~~/~~

A few weeks later, worried that it would do more harm than good after Elsa's outburst in their second class, she wasn't so sure anymore.

Mrs Frisk had assured her that her granddaughter was — understandably — emotional about everything these days but, in the end, this was a good opportunity for her to keep her mind from the painful things in her life at that point. Besides, Elsa had always enjoyed music and, away from school, that was a good opportunity for her to learn.

Trusting Mrs Frisk's judgement about her granddaughter, Anna kept teaching but changed the method slightly to encourage Elsa without seeming patronizing. She listened to her best friend's requests and tried indulging her with a more practical approach and songs of her liking.

On the two weeks that followed, Anna came to realise that Elsa's singing voice was actually beautiful. Her technic was still flawed and she could still sing only some of the notes but Anna could notice vestiges of her talent.

Well, talent and hard-work, actually. Mrs Frisk had told her that the girl repeated the exercises for at least two hours a day during the mornings, which was impressive even for Anna's standards. Over-archiver as she was, Elsa practised with vigour and progressed at a fast pace.

Anna was also worried, however, that Elsa would need an actual teacher sometime in the near future since. It wouldn't create an obstacle per se since Mrs Frisk would be happy to pay for classes, but it could potentially limit the time they spent together. You're being selfish, Anna, the girl reprimanded herself constantly.

Well, the girl supposed there was no point in worrying about it at that point. As things were progressing with her recovery, Elsa would probably be released from the hospital — perhaps even back to school — before Anna ran out of things to teach her.

~~/~~

It was two months after the accident when Elsa was finally released from her both of her casts and, for the first time since her accident, agreed on taking a walk on the hospital's back garden.

Both Anna and the girl's grandparents' had been insisting on it for weeks, but Elsa had been refusing on the grounds that it would be pointless considering that she wouldn't be able to see anything. The promise that she would be able to experience it with her other senses if sight failed her hadn't been enough to convince her.

To her friend's relief, Elsa confessed on the day when she was released from her casts that she had been feeling a little claustrophobic after a couple of months inside the hospital. Mr and Mrs Frisk agreed right away when Elsa asked Anna to be the one to accompany her, glad that their granddaughter was willing to go outside for a change. It was incredible, Anna thought, how supportive the elderly couple had been despite their own grief and struggles. While her best friend didn't speak much about it, Anna knew she was glad she had them.

Mr and Mrs Frisk watched them from afar as they crossed the hospital's front doors. Holding Anna's arm tightly as she wasn't able to distinguish perfectly their path, Elsa felt suddenly disoriented at the daylight and was forced to take a few deep breaths to centre herself.

"How are you feeling?" Anna asked, unable to keep a level of worry from her voice.

"I don't know," Elsa answered after a few moments in silence, shaking her head before pulling Anna ahead.

Anna could understand. A lot had changed ever since the last time her friend had been outside and feeling disoriented was only natural. All things considered, Anna thought her best friend was doing really well — she didn't know if she would have been able to be half as functional if she was under the same conditions. The fact that Elsa was actively guiding her outside despite her first hesitancy was, per se, astonishing.

Elsa's amazing like that, Anna thought proudly to herself as they were crossing the garden toward a line of trees. Elsa had asked her to sit on the ground, preferably beneath a tree, so she could try identifying sounds, smells, and — hopefully — images.

The girls sat side by side on the grass. At the fear of sounding overzealous, Anna refrained herself from asking again how Elsa was feeling and, instead, watched her with the corner of her eyes. On her part, Elsa leaned against the tree, the sun reflecting on her pale skin and accentuating the shiny tears on the corner of her eyes. She was smiling, though; so Anna wasn't too worried.

Beautiful, Anna caught herself thinking to her own astonishment. The girl had noticed before that Elsa — with light freckles, ice-blue eyes, and delicate hands — was a beautiful woman, but not since the accident and never with such intensity. Amidst all the struggles and pain, she had forgotten.

I'm a king-kong man
I'm a voodoo man
Oh, I'm an apeman
I look out the window
But I can't see the sky
The air pollution is a-fogging up my eyes
I want to get out of this city alive
And make like an apeman
La la la la la la la

Anna was so surprised by her line of thoughts that she didn't realise right away that Elsa was singing in a low tone beside her. The Kinks— the band was definitely a favourite of both of their dads and, growing up, they had always thought of that particular song as funny. Until they realised on seventh grade or something that the lyrics were supposed to be a criticism of the humans' behaviour against nature.

Still, she realised that the song was strangely fitting to Elsa's situation. Unable to see the sky even when directly looking at it, holding a desire to get away from that all. Well— it wasn't a perfect fit, but neither of them knew many songs that were.

Elsa's voice, albeit low, was firm and confident. still struggling with A's, she wasn't getting all the notes right but that wasn't holding her back that day, which made her voice sound very... attractive.

Anna shook her head in confusion, trying to drive the strange thoughts away. She had known since forever that Elsa was pretty and talented, nothing new there. Go on!

"That was incredible!" Anna realised that her voice was a bit shaky and hoped Elsa hadn't noticed.

"Not really—" The girl had a tiny smile on her lips when she raised her arm and cleaned her teary eyes. "But I admit it's better."

"Well, the improvement is amazing. You got this song all by yourself and it was almost perfect— just a few notes— and the rhythm was just a little slower than the original." Elsa nodded in response, thoughtful. Anna knew she was saving that information for her further practices. "So— huh— how does it feel? Being outside, I mean—"

Elsa remained in silence for a long time after she heard the question but Anna could see she was trying to come up with an answer and didn't break it. "It's— different. I can see better than when I'm indoors, but it's all sort of blurry."

It wasn't exactly what Anna had asked — she actually wanted to know how Elsa was feeling — but her best friend rarely spoke her vision impairment so decided to take the other girl's openness as a good sign and not an avoidance to talk about other matters.

"Oh— that's good, though, right? You can tell your doctor, perhaps it means you can see better in more illuminated spaces. Or perhaps it's the kind of light. He will add that to your treatment, for sure. Lights, I mean—"

Luckily, Elsa interrupted her ramblings with a soft giggle. Oh, how she had missed that sound! "Well, the sun feels nice, at least, and I had forgotten that the grass smelled so sweet."

Anna flushed slightly in embarrassment over her awkwardness but was glad that Elsa had expanded her response — even if it still didn't answer her question.

Instead of pressuring her to speak more, though, the girl waited for her best friend to add more. When a minute passed and Elsa remained silent, the girl smirked: "Wanna sing something else, then?"

Author's Note: I'm so, so sorry this is 24h late. I had lots of trouble writing it, condensing Anna's feelings to one single chapter was difficult since this is supposed to be a short fic. Still not sure if I did it alright. Anyways, stay safe! See you very soon.