Rifiuto: Non Miriena
A/N: So I think she was trying to make this as mythical and mystical and interesting as possible without weighing it down too much with myth and legend and philosophy and the like. I know there's a mention of the old 1780s sea shanty My Jolly Sailor Bold in this chapter somewhere, and an attempt at tying possible reincarnation, water having memory and elemental magic together. Let's see how she does, shall we? Written: 2019 - Licia
She fled back to the safety of Ahtohallan.
It was the only place where she didn't have to be near him, see him, hear about him. She wouldn't be surrounded by the reminder that he was there, recuperating in her hut, tainting her tribe, tainting her home. She scurried up the stairs to the library, and proceeded to pull every book off the shelves, in hopes of finding something that would explain the reappearance of evil in life. When she found nothing, she turned her attention to penance, scanning the books she thought would hold some definition or explanation.
Sitting on the floor before the blue flames of the fire, she ran her finger down page after page, book after book until-
"Aha!" She squinted, struggling to read against the flickering firelight before shifting to where she could read the full sentence. "La véritable pénitence consiste à regretter sans cesser les défauts du passé, et à résoudre fermement de ne plus jamais commettre ce qui est si déplorable."
She lifted her head, letting herself think over the phrase until she could remember the translation from French. 'True penance... consists in regretting without ceasing the faults of the past, and in firmly resolving to never again commit that which is so deplorable.'
She let the book fall to her lap, the words of Bernard of Clairvaux washing over her. She was no closer to whatever she was searching for, and what was worse, was she didn't even remember what she was searching for. Somewhere between speaking with Hans and returning to the glacier, the subject she was going to look up vanished from her mind. Sighing, she shut the book, and set it aside, back where she started. Without a word, she stood, and proceeded to put the books back on the shelves, before resting her forehead against the shelf with a groan.
Sighing, she left the library, hurrying down the stairs and out onto the steps. The soft sound of the sea crashing began to calm her down, as she walked towards the water's edge. The dutiful part of her nagged to return to the Northuldra, but her desire for calm was greater. And so she sat.
On the 'beach', knees to her chest, skirts fluttering in the breeze that came off the sea, she wrapped her arms around her knees and tilted her face towards the sky. A brilliant blue glistened overhead, and she sighed, closing her eyes. She could smell salt, and taste it in the air, and it reminded her of her father. Agnarr had spent two years as an Admiral in the Arendellian navy- something she'd discovered on her last trip into the the glacier. Which brought about the question she'd been trying to find an answer for for weeks; was she destined to be her parents' child? Water was apparently in the blood, so why not powers over a subset of such a major element? When she'd been born, had the water in her father's blood remembered her mother's selfless act, and upon her birth, the spirits had decided that water would be her element? Or was she grasping at straws now?
Her eyes closed, and she turned her face to the sun overhead, letting the sound of the waves relax her. A soft tune began to fall from her lips; not her mother's lullaby, but something from her father's navy days. "My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold..."
The old sea shanty had been something special between Elsa and her father, even after the accident with Anna. On her darkest days, Agnarr would sit one the other side of the door and sing the old shanty to her; it, perhaps more than Iduna's lullaby, would calm the frantic girl down even more. Though he never went into the room because his darling daughter never let him in, the shanty was what kept them connected. So to know that he had died by the sea's hand-
Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she quickly wiped them away. She so rarely thought about her parents; even though she was the Guardian of Ahtohallan, and often went to relive memories, it was still painful. The fact that they had been caught in the Dark Sea on a quest to find the source of her powers...
"You are not responsible for their choices." She sighed. "No, Anna, just their deaths."
The words still stung, all these years later, even though she now knew it wasn't her fault, and that she shouldn't treat it like it was, she had grown up feeling like a curse, and couldn't, even now, help feeling as though her very existence had a hand in their deaths. She remembered the moment she and Anna had stepped into the wreckage of their ship, the moment she'd laid her hands on the floor, reconstructed the moment of their deaths, listened to their screams. Heard how, even as they were swallowed by the sea, their father still thought of his older daughter, his precious baby girl- "We keep going- for Elsa!" The pain, the death, the agony had ripped at her heart, as she'd watched the water droplets form into a perfect sculpture of her parents being swallowed by the waves of the Dark Sea; their mother pressed against their father's chest, his body curved around hers, protecting her even in death.
Her mind returned to Olaf's water theory. It was perhaps the strangest theory she'd ever heard of, but the more she thought about it, the more it started to slowly make sense. Ahtohallan was nothing but memories; it was ancient, left from the last Ice Age. There was a high probability that it contained not just the memories, but maybe even a touch of the souls of those lost, and maybe, when those seeking answers came, the piece of their soul that was left behind returned to them. She shook her head. Where had that come from?
To say she was religious... well, she attended services every Sunday, and read and believed the word of the Bible, but she didn't take it as the be all and end all of life. Her father had taught her to question everything, even religion.
"All religions can be looked at as absurd, my little Lisbet, but it is how we handle them that determines the true fools. Just because a man of the cloth quotes the Bible, does not necessarily mean it is truth. Remember, truth is the antithesis of falsehoods. If they constantly defend without just reason or cause, it is safe to say that prefer the falsehood to the truth. Never be ashamed to question religion; it will make you stronger for it, and help you to determine those who wish to undermine your rule."
And her father had been right. Thanks to his teachings, she'd been able to find the proverbial snake in the grass among her council four months after the Great Thaw. The man had quoted the good book at her, and then proceeded to tell her that she was a young, inexperienced, child of a queen, who had no place in a man's world, because God had decreed that all women be subservient to men. She'd stood up to him, drawing on her own knowledge of the Bible-
She shook her head. It wouldn't do to dwell on silly things from the past. There were more important matters at hand. After a moment, she lifted a hand, studying it in the sunlight. She rubbed her fingers against her palm; she could feel her own skin, could taste, touch, smell and hear... and yet, it was as though there was a second layer added to her. As though she wore two skins, one atop the other.
But that goes back to the possibility of reincarnation-
She turned back, gaze drifting past her palace to the glacier itself. There was a strange sense about it, that she could never put her finger on. After a moment, she got up, moving past the palace and going to the entrance of the glacier. Something inside it seemed to call to her- not just the voice or that of her mother, but something else, something deeper, ancient even.
Taking a deep breath, she made her way inside, following the same path she'd followed that long ago day. Her magic called out to it, a ripple underneath the skin, and it answered back. As she passed into what could have at one time been a throne room, she stopped. There it was again, that strange, tingling energy that pulsed against her skin, mirroring the pulse her magic made.
She swallowed, looking around, waiting. After a moment, she spoke up,
"I understand that I went too far. I won't go any further, but..." She swallowed thickly. "But I am your guardian. It's my job to greet those that come with pure intent and protect you from those who don't." She felt ridiculous, standing in the throne-like room talking to a glacier of all things. A warm breeze picked up, from somewhere deep within, ruffling her dress and playing with her hair, and her eyes closed on instinct.
"You are the Guardian of all, not just me." Her eyes opened and she blinked, surprised to hear a deep, soothing voice, similar to her father's. "You are the strongest of the elements, it is up to you to maintain balance between them."
A soft gasp escaped her throat and she froze. In all her time here, she'd never heard an actual voice respond to her questions. She had a question, balanced on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't make her mouth work. Finally, after several minutes, she spoke up. "The day... the day I discovered myself... the day I... I became..." She stopped, nervous. "I know that I froze, but... but did I die?"
She waited, and waited, and waited, only to hear nothing in return. Clearly, that was her answer; she was not to know. A moment passed, before she sighed, deciding it was best if she returned to her palace, her solitude and her books. With a bow, she turned and hurried back the way she came. Once back at the entrance, she let her thoughts take over. Her natural curiosity had started to take over again, and she knew she wouldn't be able to focus on anything else until she satisfied it, or tried to.
As she returned to her library, and began looking through the books, she felt the same warm caress upon her skin. It rippled through her, warm and tender, like a mother's touch. She couldn't place the voice that had spoken to her in the could-be throne room, but it had made it obvious that it was tied in a sense to her magic. Of course it's tied to your magic, you are its guardian. You are the manifestation of Ahtohallan itself.
She lowered the book she'd been skimming through, the thought ringing in her head. There was no way that was true; if anything, reincarnation of a previous self was more probable than manifestation-
Her gaze landed on the banner she'd discarded on her desk, and after a moment, she set her book down and went to pick it up. It wasn't just that this was the one she'd given Hans at her coronation that distracted her thoughts now, it was the swirling manifestation of...
Those green eyes, meeting hers, filled with nothing but pain. The injuries he'd sustained, the confusion in his voice when he'd seen her, sitting so close to him they could have kiss, had he been well and she not been so shocked.
She sighed, casting away all thoughts of manifestations and reincarnations and mysterious voices. She couldn't stay here any longer; her restlessness wouldn't allow her to. But she refused to go back to the Northuldra right now, and she didn't feel comfortable returning to Arendelle. She glanced back at the banner in her hands, making up her mind. Grabbing her mother's shawl, she wrapped it around her neck and then conjured a small pouch she wore on her hip, tucking the banner into it.
Without glancing back, she turned and dashed from the palace, calling the Nokk to her once she reached the other side of the glacier. If she wasn't going to return to the Northuldra or Arendelle or stay here, then she might as well start looking for answers. And luckily, she knew where to start.