When it was all said and done, a part of Elsa was almost… disappointed.
Admittedly, it wasn't like she had expected much when she had traveled to Atohallan. Her journey had only started at all to try and get a voice to stop bothering her, particularly when she was finally able to get a decent night's sleep; everything else that had followed as a result of it had been, well, completely unexpected. And maybe that was the part of her that was still a child speaking, really—the part of her that still yearned for adventure, for a life changing revelation, for the moment the hero of the story became something more than what they had been when everything had started. She had certainly gotten that in spades, and yet…
Well. She supposed some part of her had hoped this whole 'fifth spirit' business would have been a little more… mystical, perhaps. Not too much, obviously; she still wanted to be able to age and grow old with her loved ones, and that didn't seem to be an issue. She still needed to perform the same number of human functions to keep herself going, and really only seemed to have a new sense of inner peace, a slightly better grasp of her magic now that she had been to its source, and a tolerance for the cold that put her previous comfort level to shame.
She'd mostly just hoped to kind of do away with some of those human functions. Maybe not so much the eating part—she liked chocolate, okay—but sleep? She could have done with not needing to sleep anymore. At least needing to sleep a little less in order to function? That would have been nice. She would have liked that.
It was fine, though.
It was. Sure, she was in a new place with new people, but that was all by her choice! She was settling in, she was adjusting, she was getting used to it. She had a better grasp of herself than she'd ever had in her whole life, a level of peace and satisfaction she'd never felt in Arendelle despite her loved ones. Trouble sleeping was… not a new issue for her, exactly, even if she wasn't enjoying its sudden return, but she had slept poorly for thirteen years. She could adjust to it.
She could.
She would.
Elsa had spent her whole life with questions, with having to accept that at one some level she might have to one day settle for just not knowing anything about herself. Now she had her answers, now she had her space, now she had her sister safe and happy with the rest of her family. She wouldn't give that up, not for anything in the world, not after how much it had taken for her and Anna to get to the places they were at now.
If all of that meant that her sleep would go back to the fractured, uneasy state it had been in for thirteen years, then she would accept it as her lot in life. She'd survived it once before, and she knew that she could survive it again. Not being able to sleep wasn't a new thing, for her. It would be harder for her to go back to it after three years of a relatively decent sleep schedule (barring the occasional nightmare), but Elsa had nothing but faith in herself at this point.
She could handle this.
She could.
The thing was, Elsa was… sort of used to not sleeping.
Before, she'd only slept all the way through the night with no issues until she was eight years old. Then the accident had happened, then the separation had happened for the next thirteen years, and it… it wasn't something that she really liked to think about, because for the most part it was well and truly behind her now.
-"MAMA! PAPA!"
She screamed and she screamed, Anna still and cold in her arms, but no one was coming. No one seemed to hear her screams, no one seemed to notice or care, and all Elsa could do was clutch at her little sister and sob until it felt like her throat bled from it as the whole castle froze around her.-
For the most part. Elsa was still only human; she could admit that she did occasionally still have nightmares, the harsh reminder of what could have happened at several points in her life if things had gone differently. And yes, maybe she had handled those nightmares for the longest time by trying to sleep as little as possible. Not the healthiest coping mechanism, but she hadn't exactly been a shining example of that for most of her life. She'd found ways to keep herself awake, found ways to function on only a few hours of sleep, and for the most part they had worked.
In hindsight, she really should have considered that if she was going to go back to her old habits that the Northuldra wouldn't have the same options immediately on hand.
It was fine, though. She was nothing if not resourceful, and she did still have a few people she could lean on in her new home to work this out.
"You said you wanted these leaves and berries for what, exactly?" Honeymaren asked, taking a moment to double check what she had picked from the bush before passing it along to Elsa. She knew the forest like the back of her hand, but with someone new it never hurt to be sure.
"There was a tea I used to drink when I lived in Arendelle to help with my nerves, sometimes." The lie came too easily for comfort and settled a little too heavily on her chest at the subtle way the other woman's eyes softened in understanding, but Elsa comforted herself in the knowledge that it wasn't a complete lie. She accepted the items with a quiet murmur of thanks, tucking them into her pouch. "I don't expect it to be exactly the same, obviously, but something close to it here would be nice if I ever feel the urge."
"Of course." Honeymaren absently ran her hand along her reindeer's neck, her face thoughtful as she considered other parts of the forest. "We have plenty of other options in the forest if those don't work for you, so let me know. We can try those instead, or ask Yelena to come up with something for you if nothing else works." She threw the blonde a grin as she swung up onto her reindeer, settling comfortably on the animal's back. "We're nothing if not resourceful."
Elsa felt that heaviness against her chest increase, and inhaled quietly to try and relieve the pressure.
She should have been honest; she knew that. The Northuldra were her mother's people, were her people, and they had been nothing but kind and patient since she had decided to stay with them. Honeymaren in particular had proven herself to be a quick and steady friend, and they shared plenty of experience as elder siblings. It meant a surprisingly width of topics for discussion, and Elsa treasured the unexpectedly easy connection she'd established with the other woman.
This was her problem, though. Anna had been the only one in her life to know the extent of her insomnia, and that had only been because of her seemingly endless supply of both patience and stubbornness. Elsa wouldn't ask someone else to shoulder the burden, not when she had plenty of ways already to deal with it.
So instead of being honest she adjusted her pack more comfortably against her hip, stepping closer to Honeymaren's reindeer and smiling slightly when the beast lowered his nose into her hand for pets. "I wanted to thank you again," she said. "This is such a small thing in comparison, and I know I pulled you away from bigger tasks the village."
The brunette shrugged with an easy smile, leaning down to offer her hand. Elsa hesitated a moment, debating the merits of calling for the Nokk instead of taking up additional space on her friend's mount, but she was the one offering. They were in the middle of the forest anyway, away from an easy body of water, and it really would be asking too much of the Nokk to come all the way out here just to carry her back to the village. Surely there was no harm in this, right? It wouldn't insult the spirits or anything?
You're overthinking this, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Anna said, echoing teasingly through her mind. Just take the pretty girl's hand and don't worry about it.
The sudden inclusion of 'pretty' in her thought processes made Elsa flush, but it was enough to spur her into action so that hopefully Honeymaren wouldn't notice the brief lapse or her pause in action; she grabbed the other woman's hand with more confidence than she felt, pushing herself up onto the reindeer's back at the same moment she felt herself being pulled along—oh my, Honeymaren was stronger than she looked—stilling herself as the animal gave a shake before settling.
"You're fine," the brown-eyed woman said and ah, okay, she was speaking now. Elsa needed to focus on that, and not on the reindeer shifting under her or why she was suddenly using words like strong and pretty to think about literally one of her only friends in the Northuldra. "Honestly, I could probably make a good argument for this being more important than my duties in the village since I'm helping out the fifth spirit and all, if anyone asked me about it when I get home."
"Anyone being Ryder, I take it?"
Honeymaren let out a warm laugh at that, spurring her reindeer gently into an easy trot. "Are you kidding? Ryder loves looking after the herd himself. I think he has more fun that way, honestly."
"Really?" Elsa carefully gripped her friend's hips, mindful of the distance between them. "No wonder he and Kristoff hit it off immediately."
"Exactly. So I promise, Elsa, I'm fine. I doubt anyone even noticed I was gone today. This wasn't a problem at all."
"Because you get to go back and brag that you helped the fifth spirit?"
"One half of the fifth spirit, technically speaking. And nah, I just enjoy getting the chance to help out my friend."
Elsa sucked in a quiet breath at the way her heart skipped a beat. Honeymaren had said those words so easily, without thinking about it. She meant it, too; that much was obvious from the warmth in her tone. Much like Anna, such kindness seemed to come to her like breathing, without any thought. It only made the lie sit even heavier in her chest, as much as she tried to remind herself that it was only a small one and partially true anyway.
"Well," she said when words finally decided to cooperate, "thank you..."
"That's the third time you've thanked me for this."
"… for the last time, I promise. I'm just… very grateful. Hopefully this will help, and I always enjoy spending time with a friend."
If Honeymaren could do it so easily, Elsa could too. She was an adult, this wasn't something that was worth overthinking, and the other woman had said it first anyway! It was fine. Totally normal. Adults did things like this all the time, and she wasn't going to get into her own head about it too much when they'd had a perfectly fine relationship so far. She was too tired to go into this spiral.
Elsa really needed that cup of tea, was the point.
As the reindeer picked up its pace—they must have been close to home, with the animal becoming so eager—Elsa's grip on Honeymaren's hips tightened. Her brain was already hazy from a lack of sleep and its own running around in circles, and so she didn't pay attention to her friend's reply. Had she been thinking more clearly she might have considered what she did next, but… well, she was tired, the reindeer wasn't moving too quickly, and the huntress she was holding on to was really soft and warm.
She dropped her head to the back of the brunette's shoulder, murmuring a soft "Sorry" that she wasn't even sure she heard, her eyes fluttering shut when the woman didn't immediately move to dislodge her, wrapping her arms around her waist for a better grip to help her keep still. Had she been a little more aware she might have heard the way Honeymaren's breath briefly caught, but once she was comfortable Elsa dozed off almost embarrassingly quickly.
Honeymaren opened her mouth, hesitated, then slowly closed it as she realized the blonde was asleep. She sighed quietly, slowing the reindeer down into a steady walk despite the animal's eagerness, and dropped her hand down to where Elsa's were now clasped against her stomach, giving a gentle squeeze.
She didn't know if this new mixture would do the trick, but she hoped it would. She hadn't wanted to call attention to it—the former queen of Arendelle didn't seem to want anyone to know, despite how sharp-eyed Northuldra hunters were—but she had noticed the circles under Elsa's eyes, the slight slump to her shoulders, the way her eyes would occasionally go cloudy and unfocused. Hopefully they would get back, make the tea, and it could help the fifth spirit get some sleep. She looked like she needed it more and more, lately.
And if this mixture didn't work, well, Honeymaren would be more than happy to ride out with her again to try something else. That was what friends did, right?
Right.
The tea did help, a little bit. It wasn't a fix-it for the full problem, but in truth Elsa hadn't expected it to be; based off of her past experiences, she had figured the brew would either help her more easily slip into an ultimately restless sleep, or it would would suppress her exhaustion for a few hours so she could at least give the appearance of being well rested and functioning. It hadn't taken her long to realize this particular brew was the latter, and that was fine. Better than fine, really, because drinking it brought back memories of when she'd been young, early on in the separation, and Iduna had started brewing her the same tea she'd often seen her mother drinking to help her cope.
In hindsight, she wondered now if her mother's tea had been a modified Northuldra mixture. It would certainly explain the similarities, and the thought gave Elsa an unexpected pang; Iduna had always seemed so composed and put together, and there was something humbling in the realization that she might have also struggled with insomnia. It seemed in more and more ways lately, she was learning she was truly her mother's daughter.
The point was, the tea helped and the fact that it reminded her of her mother was an unexpected but pleasant bonus. It was a shot of energy almost straight into her veins, and for several days it was enough to keep her going despite the fact that her sleep was getting patchier. It was almost ironic, really, that in the end what ultimately did her in was that she'd been sleeping so well for the past three years and hadn't had a drop of tea in as long that she'd forgotten that inevitably, things like this also had a crash point—that moment when the body began to adjust and the effect started to wear off, usually at the worst possible moment because the universe had a sick sense of humor.
Elsa was finishing up a visit to Ataohallen when she started to feel the effects of it. She'd gone out to the magical river today at Anna's request—her sister's last letter had included a question on the merits of gradually introducing Arendelle citizens to the spirits of the forest, to try and further open up the line of communication between the kingdom and the Northuldra—to try and explore the memories, to see if such a thing had at least been discussed before their grandfather had shown himself to be a traitorous snake. She would leave the actual talking to Anna when she floated the idea to Yelena, but she'd figured that a look through the memories could at be a good reference for her sister to have on hand.
She was just emerging from the glacier and calling for the Nokk when she felt it; that sudden drain of energy that made her stumble, and she rested a steadying hand on the water spirit's neck as it huffed softly with concern. "I'm okay," she said, and gave a gentle pat when this didn't soothe the beast; if anything her words seemed to agitate the Nokk further, and it pushed its nose into her shoulder, ears flicking back. "I'm okay," she repeated, straightening up, and that finally seemed to do the trick. She wasn't okay, not really, but she couldn't linger on it; she still needed to get across the Dark Sea and back to the tribe, and then she would recover from the crash.
Even soothed the Nokk realized something was still wrong, because when Elsa went to try and pull herself onto its back it was having none of it; it pushed her away gently and bowed, turning to nudge her into place and only moving once it was certain she had a good grip on its mane. It tried to move slowly, clearly mindful of its rider's weakness, but the former queen knew that wouldn't be enough. She dug her heels into its sides, urging it on, and rolled her eyes when it snorted in protest. "If you go slow I'm going to pass out before we even make it across the sea," she retorted. "I've had this happen to me before. We need to move quickly."
The Nokk didn't look back at her as it picked up its pace, but the way it snorted as its ears flicked back still gave Elsa the sense that she was being judged for what she had just said. If she'd had more energy she would have been annoyed to be judged by a spirit for how she had lived her human life up until this point, but it wasn't exactly wrong and she didn't have the energy to be annoyed. Instead she dropped her forehead to the spirit's watery mane, letting her eyes drift shut.
It felt like only a second later when Elsa was jolted rudely awake by a sharp snort and the Nokk—veering, suddenly, and that was the moment that she realized she had fallen deeply enough asleep to start falling off the water spirit's back, and the beast had attempted to change course to keep her from plunging into the sea. It had clearly been longer, though, as they were definitely further across the Dark Sea than she remembered being when she'd closed her eyes, and she grimaced and shifted to settle once more on her mount's back, tangling her fingers in its mane. It didn't actually do much, but it gave her fading mind something to focus on. If she, one half of the bridge between humans and spirits, ended up falling off of her steed and into the ocean, she'd never live it down. She supposed if nothing else, she was lucky that no one from the tribe was close enough to see it.
Of course, the moment she thought that was the moment she blinked enough sleep and water out of her eyes to realize they were close enough to the shore for her to see the telltale purple flame trail of a certain small fire spirit, and then she saw the reindeer that was easily keeping pace with Bruni as the salamander charged onto the beach, Honeymaren on its back. So she stood corrected; if she had fallen off of the Nokk and into the Dark Sea, at least one person would have seen her, and of course it would have been her one pretty friend in the whole forest.
It was at this moment that Elsa finally began to accept that she was maybe too tired to process all of this.
Bruni squeaked an anxious greeting as the Nokk's hooves touched black pebbles, and the sound was enough for Elsa to smile weakly. "I'm okay," she said, but the words didn't come out nearly as reassuringly as she wanted them to when she practically melted off of her steed's back—haha, she melted off of the Nokk, see, it was funny because she had ice powers and she was melting off of the water spirit and whoa, okay, her brain was definitely getting too fuzzy for her to think this was hilarious—and felt her legs buckle the moment her bare feet hit solid ground.
"Elsa! Elsa, hey, whoa." Honeymaren's voice was soft and suddenly she had gone from standing beside her reindeer to gathering the blonde up into her arms to keep her from falling flat on her face, and Elsa sighed sleepily and nuzzled into her as she briefly processed the fact that she hadn't even seen her friend move. "Hey, you're okay," she said, and normally being this close to another person who wasn't Anna would have made Elsa nervous, but right now all she could really focus on was that Honeymaren was soft and warm and she smelled really good. It was almost enough to make her drift off again.
Almost but not quite, because Honeymaren was being rude and straightening up, adjusting her grip on the exhausted woman in her arms. "I've got you," she murmured. "What happened? Bruni came up to me and Ryder in a total state, I thought you were hurt or something, did… did you nearly fall off of the Nokk back there?"
Elsa opened her mouth to firmly deny that had happened, but the Nokk snorted sharply behind her and she shifted and cracked open an eye to glare at it over her shoulder. "I didn't hit the water," she finally settled on after thinking about it for a moment, settling back into her previous place and closing her eye.
Honeymaren didn't say a word, but the slightly arched brow as she looked Elsa over said everything she was thinking. The former queen didn't particularly like the look on her friend's face, so instead of continuing to look at it she shifted and buried her face into the spot where her neck met her shoulder, shifting to cradle Bruni to her chest as the salamander bounced into her hand and chirped a greeting. "Traitor," she whispered, and he simply squeaked and curled happily into the ice crystals of her dress.
"Right." This close together, Elsa felt Honeymaren's sigh, something warm and gentle against her hair. "I guess the tea hasn't been helping, and… I don't suppose you somehow have enough energy to at least hold on to the Nokk and ride back on your own?"
Elsa tilted her head and opened her eyes, blinking sleepily and smiling as she met Honeymaren's gaze. "You have pretty eyes."
"The tea definitely hasn't been helping and you don't have any energy, got it," Honeymaren practically yelped as her face darkened, her voice almost reaching a pitch that might have made any canines in the area whimper in protest; as it was, the only response she got was an annoyed squeak from Bruni as he glared at her from the comfort of Elsa's ice. "Please tell me that you have a good grip on Bruni right now, Your Majesty."
"'m not queen anymore, Honey."
"Formerly Your Majesty, got it, just—hold on to him, I don't want to get accidentally burned for this." Honeymaren took a deep breath, half for what she was about to do and half to compose herself, and in the next second Elsa found herself being jolted at least somewhat awake as the reindeer herder shifted them and swept the blonde up into her arms like she weighed almost nothing at all.
Oh, my. Honeymaren was definitely stronger than she looked, especially considering the fact that she was shorter than Elsa and still lifted her with practically no effort. She managed to keep her grip on Bruni despite the sudden shift, and the tiny fire spirit let out a delighted squeal as he was pulled along for the ride, purple flames beginning to flicker along his back. Elsa was thankfully awake enough now to catch that, and soothingly ran a finger over his back as she hummed. Much to her everlasting relief, the flames flickered out as quickly as they'd come to life, and she breathed a little easier, her eyes drifting shut as she was reminded that she was surrounded by warmth and still incredibly tired.
Honeymaren grimaced as the Nokk bowed for her, but a quick glance at her reindeer confirmed that getting both herself and a sleeping fifth spirit onto her back would take too much time and energy. She stepped away only long enough to send the animal back to the herd, then cautiously made her way over to the Nokk and eased onto its back, sucking in a breath as it smoothly rose up onto all fours. Her grip on Elsa tightened, and her free hand tangled in the Nokk's mane; it didn't feel like water or ice, and she swallowed.
She paused only long enough to look down at Elsa, to confirm that she was settled and comfortable, and softened for a moment when she saw just how deeply asleep the other woman was. "You're lucky you're cute," she sighed as she took off her hat, absently placing it on Elsa's head and chuckling weakly as the other woman murmured in approval and nuzzled further into her.
She hoped her friend enjoyed the nap; it looked like they would need to have a talk when she woke up.
As Elsa slowly but surely drifted back into the word of wakefulness, she became aware of two things. First, she was warm; at some point after she had fallen asleep, someone—probably Honeymaren—had wrapped a blanket around her. Bruni was still tucked into her chest, practically purring, and he let out a happy little trill as she ran her finger sleepily down his back in greeting. Even besides the fire spirit and the blanket, there was warmth on the top of her head, but slowly waking up as she was, she found she was in no rush to remove it.
Second, her pillow was breathing.
That jolted her awake, and she yelped in surprise as her sudden movement made the reindeer that she'd been leaning into huff in protest. "Oh, hi," she managed, cautiously shifting to look at the animal. "You, uh, wouldn't happen to be Honeymaren's, would you?"
"She's mine." As if Elsa's sentence had summoned her Honeymaren swung down from the tree her reindeer had been resting against, dropping easily onto the ground and brushing leaves out of her hair. "I called her back when I realized you probably wouldn't want everyone to see you like this."
"I—thank you. How long was I sleeping?" Honeymaren wasn't wearing her usual hat, and Elsa must have still been a little asleep to be so fascinated by the way the brunette tucked loose strands of hair back behind her ear.
"A few hours. Seems like you really needed it. I was gathering some new herbs while you were sleeping, but..." Honeymaren shrugged, sitting down next to the blonde. "From what I saw, I don't think any brew we come up with is going to help."
Elsa didn't wince, but only because she'd had a lifetime of learning how to conceal her emotions. It might not have been the healthiest coping mechanism for her in the long run but in moments like this, it certainly had its benefits. "I didn't fall off the Nokk, Honeymaren."
"No, but you still almost fell off of it, I saw that clear as day. And then I got to you and you were all..." Honeymaren trailed off, blinking a few times, and quickly shook her head. "Look, the point is, you almost fell of the water spirit. I didn't imagine that."
Elsa frowned and searched her memory, but everything from her near fall off the Nokk was frustratingly fuzzy. That… wasn't a good sign, and this time she did wince. The slight movement was enough to stir Bruni, who squeaked softly, and she gently shifted him. "No," she sighed, "you aren't in trouble. I'm not happy about what you did, but I know you were just trying to help. Thank you."
"You aren't happy that he could sense you were in trouble and he went to find you help," Honeymaren said flatly, and too late the former queen realized how what she'd said would sound like to another person.
"I wasn't in trouble," Elsa protested, her brain too fuzzy still to make the connection on why arguing this was causing that same heaviness in her chest from before. "I made it back to shore."
"You almost fell off the Nokk."
"But I didn't!"
"I'm not done yet," Honeymaren snapped, and Elsa was at least smart enough to stay quiet as Bruni perked up at the sharpness in the other woman's voice. "You almost fell of the Nokk and only stayed on because it could sense what was happening, and when you made it to shore you practically collapsed into my arms. You could barely stand on your own two feet. And after all of that, you're seriously going to look me in the eye right now and say you weren't happy I was there because of Bruni?"
The little salamander had clearly learned his name, because the sound of it from her friend's lips made him release a squeak that sounded far too agreeing for Elsa's rapidly clearing mind. She lightly flicked the back of his head to show her displeasure as she turned everything over, trying to think of the best possible way to approach this. This was a delicate situation; Honeymaren was clearly upset, and the blonde liked her enough to want to try and soothe that while still making it obvious that despite how it'd looked she'd had the situation well enough in hand. She was used to crashes like this, if not them happening in exactly this type of situation.
"This isn't new to me," she ultimately decided on, because it was the truth. "I've had crashes like this before."
This was apparently the wrong thing to say as Honeymaren's eyes sharpened to an almost pure gold, and despite being the one with ice powers Elsa swore the air around them suddenly dropped several degrees. She didn't shiver, but it was enough for her to draw the blanket a little tighter around her. She ran her fingers through her hair—an old nervous habit from when she'd kept it tied back in a braid during her ruling years in Arendelle—and jolted slightly when her fingers brushed warm fur. Almost comically late into the moment, she realized she was wearing a hat.
Honeymaren's hat.
Honeymaren had carried her here and set her down, had taken the time to wrap her up in a blanket and put her hat on her in some attempt to keep her warm, presumably to help her sleep a little easier. The same Honeymaren who hadn't even hesitated to excuse herself from her chores when Elsa had asked her for help looking for herbs. That very same Honeymaren who was now, judging from her expression and the feeling in the air, rather upset about the revelation that this was apparently a normal situation for the fifth spirit.
Oh.
Oh, dear.
"… Can you forget that I said that and let me try again?" the former queen asked, her voice weak to her own ears.
"I kind of want to talk about it, actually," Honeymaren growled, in the tone of voice Elsa had learned to associate with the times she was making Anna upset because she wasn't taking care of herself or the times she was risking her personal safety. She didn't know what it said about her habits that she immediately recognized that tone.
"There's really nothing to talk about."
"Crashing so hard you can't stand seems like something you should talk about! Elsa, have you slept at all since I helped you find those herbs?"
Elsa swallowed and eased Honeymaren's hat off of her head, twisting it nervously in her hands. Bruni slid down her dress with a delighted squeak when she let him go and immediately settled comfortably on one of her legs, but she didn't pay him any mind as she tried to think of a good way to admit that she hadn't been entirely honest with her friend from the start.
There was no good way to admit that, was the thing.
"Technically speaking," she finally said, "the tea did help. Just not with, um… sleeping. Exactly."
Honeymaren's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
She kept her eyes down, focused on the way she was holding on to the brunette's hat. "It's an old brew that Mother taught me," she said. "Depending on how you mix it, it can make it easier for you to fall asleep, but it's not a way of making sure that you stay asleep. The way that I preferred using it—the way that I usually saw her using it herself—was that it gives you enough energy to just kind of… push through needing to sleep."
It hadn't been Iduna's fault, not really. For all the talk now of how Elsa had been a gift to her, a reward for a Northuldran girl saving an Arendellian boy, her mother hadn't actually expected her to be born with her magic, and she certainly hadn't expected there to one day be an accident that would completely shatter the perfect control her eldest had demonstrated until that fateful night. Perhaps if Agnarr had been the one trapped on the other side of the mists, and the sisters had been born into the tribe instead of the kingdom… but that was a what if that Elsa didn't feel like spiraling into. It wasn't what her life had ultimately been, and in the end, she felt like she'd had a pretty good life so far.
It hadn't been Iduna's fault that Elsa had been the one who had started to panic, had started to push her parents away along with her sister out of fear of hurting them both with the ice that came as easily to her as breathing. It hadn't been her fault that the nightmares had kept coming, again and again nearly every night, and she wasn't even able to soothe her daughter with the comforting embrace a mother always longed to give her child in those situations. The tea Iduna had brewed had been an imperfect solution to a problem with no easy answer, a coping mechanism she had learned herself and had passed on in the hopes that it could at least do something.
"It did help," Elsa murmured, staring at Honeymaren's hat. "A little bit. Then Anna found out about my trouble sleeping one night after we were back from the North Mountain, and she managed to wean me off of it."
"Until you came here," Honeymaren said, her voice soft. When Elsa cautiously risked peeking at her, the sharpness and anger had faded; now there was something soft, almost painfully understanding in her golden-brown eyes.
Elsa couldn't take it; couldn't take the implication of it, and so she looked down at her friend's hat again. "I'm just having a little trouble adjusting to a new place," she sighed. "I should have realized this would probably happen, honestly. This is my first time away from Arendelle for so long."
She lightened her tone on those last words, lifting her eyes with a smile that she hoped was stronger than she felt, and met the other woman's gaze. Honeymaren smiled back, but it was weak and it didn't reach her eyes, and Elsa didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about any of this. It was too much, all of it; the exhaustion, the crash, the way her friend had gone from being frustrated to being so understanding-
–"Your sister? She returned from the mountain weak and cold! She said that you froze her heart!"
No.
"I tried to save her, but it was too late! Her skin was ice, her hair turned white!"
No.
"Your sister is dead! Because of you!"
"No."
It wasn't the wind or the cold that tore the air from her lungs, in that moment; it wasn't those things that made her cry out, made her fall to her knees. No, no, Anna, dead? No, please, not because of her, please. Anything but that, please.
She heard the sound of metal, but she didn't turn, didn't rise. She didn't need to see the moment Hans lifted his sword, and she didn't care enough to even open her eyes. It would be a quick death, a painless death. Unfitting for a monster.
Anna had deserved that. Not her. Never her.-
"I should go check on the other spirits," Elsa said, passing Honeymaren's hat back to her and getting to her feet before she could sink any deeper into her thoughts. Golden-brown eyes blinked up at her in surprise, and Bruni squeaked as he was rudely jostled from where he had been comfortably resting only a moment ago; the fifth spirit knelt down and offered him her palm as an apology, and he curled into it with a happy little sigh as she brought him in close. "If Bruni was so upset, the earth giants are probably worrying and the Nokk might still be agitated. And if Gale picked up any of this, I'll never hear the end of it from Anna."
"Elsa-"
"Thank you for your help, Honymaren. All of it. I've, I've really appreciated it."
"Elsa, wait-"
It was too late, though; even as Honeymaren scrambled to her feet, bracing a hand on her reindeer to steady her, the blonde was already moving, using her ice magic to let her pick up the pace. By the time she was fully standing, gripping the blanket she'd brought from home, Elsa was already gone.
In her defense, Elsa didn't avoid Honeymaren on purpose over the next few days after that conversation. She had needed to check in on the spirits, and by the time she had finished calming down the Nokk and the earth giants she'd realized she'd completely lost track of Gale, which could only mean one thing. By the time she'd managed to ride down the fjord the damage had been done, and she had been greeted in the docks by an immensely concerned Anna and a deeply amused but still slightly worried Kristoff.
What had initially been meant as a short visit to soothe her little sister had turned into at least one day in Arendelle, as Elsa had been coaxed into spending the night, and then had spent the rest of the next day being pulled into every sort of thing that Anna could think of in an attempt to lift her spirits. By the time the blonde had finally managed to return to the forest it was almost nightfall, and by then she had seen no point in bothering anyone from the tribe when it was already so late.
So the fact that she hadn't seen Honeymaren in two days had genuinely not been something Elsa had purposely planned, but she would take advantage of the distance to compose herself. It had been one thing to open the gates of Arendelle, three years ago. It had been one thing to open the door for herself at Atohallan and finally embrace her power for what it truly was, because in both of those cases she had ultimately ended up needing to do it—opening the gates had made Anna happy and had been part of her attempt to be more open in general, and opening the door in Atohallan had given her a sense of inner peace she had only briefly known during her first eight years of life.
Opening herself up to another person was a whole other thing entirely, especially when that person wasn't… well, Anna. Or Kai. Or even Kristoff. Opening up to people was still difficult for Elsa, and a little frightening, and for the most part it came the easiest with people she had known long enough to already trust herself, or with people those she loved trusted.
Honeymaren had been a good friend since Elsa had decided to stay in the forest. She had been nothing but friendly and supportive when Elsa had come to her asking her for help with her sleep, and they had plenty in common as elder siblings even if the twins had never spent thirteen years apart. The fact that she was stronger than she looked and pretty wasn't… really related to any of that, exactly, but it appealed to something in Elsa that she was still a little nervous to name, and made their already tentative friendship slightly complicated in a way she hadn't expected. It wasn't fair to her to compare her to Hans just because of one moment, and yet…
And yet, even if it had been the result of exhaustion and an old wound that ran skin deep, Elsa couldn't shake the thought that Hans had been just as friendly, just as supportive, just as eager to help, and in the end all of that had built up to the moment he'd tried to kill her. It wasn't fair to Honeymaren to make the comparison and she knew that, but that conversation after waking up had also been the first time she'd really talked to anyone who wasn't Anna about her sleeping problems.
She didn't know how to deal with that, with being that open—especially when it had happened to begin with because she was exhausted. She didn't know how to process Honeymaren's softness, her understanding, when in the worst way possible it reminded her of Hans even though she knew it was coming from a genuine place. So she had run away from it, and maybe she hadn't planned to be away from her friend for two days, but she could admit that staying away from the Northuldra for most of the third day had definitely been on purpose.
On the plus side, at least her sleep had been… better, these last two days. Not entirely perfect, but it was the most sleep she'd had recently, and she'd take it. Some sleep was better than no sleep at all, and it had partially restored some of the energy from her earlier crash. It would take a few days for her to be fully recovered—this had been a particularly bad one, even for her—but she was at a point where she could comfortably function.
Elsa had learned to count the small victories.
She couldn't put it off forever, though. Anna was becoming quite the efficient little diplomat, and during Elsa's time in her birth kingdom she had passed her older sister her first formal request to Yelena to meet and discuss the merits of introducing the magic of the forest to the citizens of Arendelle. It was a well written letter—Anna had clearly read and reread the document multiple times before settling on the final version, and even then she'd had Elsa sit down and read it herself to triple check it—and while Elsa had never doubted her sister's abilities as queen, it still made her proud to see how far she'd come in such a short time.
The letter was currently tucked away safely in her pouch, somewhere Elsa knew it wouldn't be damaged. And as much as a part of her still wanted to stay away from the Northuldra because approaching them meant potentially crossing paths with Honeymaren, her favor to Anna won out over her nerves about seeing the other woman again after their last encounter. The tribe was fairly big anyway, and she could be in and out while only seeing Yelena. Visiting didn't mean she had to see Honeymaren; it just meant she had to be quick enough to avoid her if she was present, or hope that she was out tending to the reindeer herd with Ryder.
And if she was there, well, Elsa would deal with it. She had a job to do, and she'd had two days of reasonably acceptable sleep, and Anna had smiled so happily when she'd taken her letter and called her the kingdom's ambassador to the Northuldra. The blonde could do, had done, a lot of things over the course of her twenty-four years of life; letting her sister down was not one of those things.
So it was that Elsa rode into the tribe's latest settlement on the Nokk's back, Bruni tucked under her hair and dozing. She swung off the water spirit carefully and lifted a hand in greeting when she saw Yelena, who thankfully was nearby and even more thankfully waved back and seemed to be in a relatively good mood.
"Please tell me you don't have anymore photographs from the general," the older woman said as Elsa approached.
Elsa smiled sheepishly. "I have a letter from Anna and photographs from Mattias?"
"That man," Yelena sighed, but there was a warm tone to it that Elsa recognized all too well when she spoke of Anna to other people. "You'd think we don't write to each other, with how often he sends you back with those things."
Elsa gave a slight shrug, already handing the documents over as Yelena held out her hand for them. The tribe leader set aside Mattias's photographs with gentle care, then unfolded Anna's letter and silently read. After a moment, she glanced at the blonde. "You approve of this plan, I assume?"
"I think it's worth considering," she said cautiously, unable to read Yelena's tone. "The kingdom views my magic fondly, and it would still be a gradual introduction. I just… if another child like me is ever born, knowing about the forest and the spirits here might help."
Yelena thought this over for a moment, and Elsa let her have the silence as she reread Anna's request a few times. After a moment she nodded, handing the letter back to her. "Very well," she said. "I would prefer to do this slowly. It'll be a lot for your people to take, even after spending three years with you as queen."
"Of course. We'll follow your advice on this."
"I'll set up arrangements to meet with Anna, and you can let her know when to expect us next time you visit. We can discuss it in more detail then, but for now..." Yelena frowned thoughtfully, before she nodded. "Speak with Honeymaren."
That wasn't what Elsa had been expecting, and it must have been showing on her face because Yelena lifted a brow. "You do remember who she is, yes?" she asked. "I know you've been away from us for a few days, but I assumed from how much time you two spent together..."
"I remember Honeymaren!" Elsa yelped, and could have cursed at the heat she felt rushing into her cheeks. "I saw her right before I left for Arendelle."
Yelena's other brow went up, now. "Ah."
It was only one word, but the tone of voice and the expression on her face somehow managed to convey everything the older woman wasn't saying, and not for the first time Elsa found herself wondering if she'd made a huge mistake by leaving Honeymaren the way she had to check on the spirits and then go to Arendelle. It had been a thought she'd shoved into the deepest, darkest corners of her mind, but she was beginning to let it surface again.
"Anyway," she continued hastily, hating the fact that her blush only deepened, "I can speak with Honeymaren about this, yes."
"Very good." Yelena nodded, after a moment. "She's got a good head on her shoulders, and she's spent enough time as of late with you and the other spirits to be reasonably comfortable with them. I'll speak with your sister, and you can see about getting her involved so this isn't all on you."
Yelena was doing this to help. Yelena was doing this because asking one half of the fifth spirit to wrangle all of the other spirits for a potential interaction with Arendelle was still asking too much of one person, and she wasn't wrong on her point about Honeymaren. What Yelena was doing was perfectly logical.
Yelena was doing this to help.
Elsa really had to remind herself of that, over and over, because at the moment it felt like the exact opposite of helping.
"Thank you," the blonde said. "I appreciate you thinking of me."
Yelena waved a hand. It was a clear dismissal, and Elsa swung back up onto the Nokk with far more grace than she felt. The sudden movement made Bruni squeak and jolt, but he didn't slip from his perch and he settled down again easily enough as she urged the water spirit on. It wasn't like him to be this cuddly for so long, but Elsa would take it without thinking about it; she found the warmth of him steadying at the moment.
Elsa had just left the tribe when she realized she'd never asked Yelena where Honeymaren was, and she groaned quietly, rubbing her temples. After the older woman's behavior she didn't want to turn around and ask her for help, and after a moment of thought she patted the Nokk's neck. "What do you think, bud?" she murmured, and its ears flicked back in response to her voice. "You think you know Honeymaren well enough at this point to figure out where she could be? It'd really help me."
The Nokk tossed its head and snorted, and she gave its neck another pat before loosening her grip on its watery mane enough to let it go in whatever direction it so chose. The horse picked up the pace, settling into an easy trot, and Elsa closed her eyes to let the ride pass faster. She was fairly well rested after two days, but she could still feel exhaustion lingering in her bones—it would take more than that for her to go back to feeling anything even remotely close to normal, and she buried the feeling swiftly. The last thing she needed was to nearly fall off the Nokk a second time while looking for Honeymaren.
She still needed to apologize to the brunette for her behavior from the first time it had happened. Elsa wasn't looking forward to that conversation, but one thing at a time.
Despite her best attempts she must have at least started to doze off, because the Nokk's sudden neigh to announce their presence jolted her more deeply than she expected. She grimaced and rubbed her eyes, sighing as Bruni nudged into her fingers; she managed a smile at his happy purr, though, and gently stroked his back as Honeymaren's reindeer answered with a greeting of her own. A quick glance around confirmed they were in one of the grazing fields that the Northuldra used for their herd, though she only saw a few stragglers grazing instead of the full bulk of them. There was no sign of Ryder either, and the knowledge that she was once again alone with her friend made her stomach clench.
No. No, she could do this. She could. All she had to do was focus on business and, when that was done, apologize for how she had behaved in the wake of her sudden crash. She'd handled far more awkward situations than this, even if she couldn't think of any immediately off the top of her head. Those situations also hadn't involved the person she was closest to after, well, people she considered family, and they hadn't involved a person her awful, awful mind occasionally liked to remind her she found attractive.
She really hoped that last part was the result of her lingering sleep deprivation.
"Elsa," Honeymaren said cautiously as she eased her reindeer into a stop, sliding off of her back. "I wasn't aware you'd returned from Arendelle."
Right. Of course Honeymaren would know she had returned to Arendelle, somehow. Why wouldn't she know that? It wasn't like it was a secret where Elsa was from, and it was safe to assume that if she wasn't with the Northuldra in the forest or visiting Atohallan she had returned to her birth kingdom. But her careful tone made the blonde uneasy, and she rested a hand on the Nokk's neck after swinging off of it to steady herself. "I've only been back since yesterday," she said, keeping her tone light. "And I didn't immediately check in with the tribe after, so."
"You know you don't have to check in with us, right?"
Elsa knew that. Of course she knew that. Even if she didn't visit the Northuldra after returning from Arendelle, the behavior of the spirits would be enough to give away her presence in the forest. "I like being polite," she said with a slight shrug.
Honeymaren hummed. "Just not this time?"
She'd walked herself right into that one.
"… I had a lot to think about." Bruni squeaked and pressed into the spot where her shoulder met her neck, sensing the hesitation in her voice, and Elsa didn't grimace even though at the moment she very much wanted to. Honeymaren being upset with her after her previous behavior was more than justified, and she should have prepared herself better for it.
But Honeymaren didn't get angry. She didn't immediately leave her reindeer and storm up to Elsa to demand she explain herself, she didn't swing back onto that same reindeer and ride away, and when she spoke her voice wasn't lifted in a shout; if anything it was almost painfully soft, like she was speaking to a spooked animal. "Did going back to Arendelle help at all?" she asked, and something in the blonde felt like it cracked and healed all at once.
-"Don't be the monster they fear you are!"-
Dammit. Elsa almost wished now that her friend was angry.
She gave the Nokk's neck a pat to steady herself and it snorted softly, turning its head to press its muzzle into her palm. "A little bit, yes. I got some sleep, at least."
A single dark brow arched. "Without drinking any of that tea, I hope?"
That made the blonde chuckle, even as an old wound inside of her ached. "No, no tea. No ingredients on hand for it and Anna never learned the recipe from Mother. She didn't need it like I did."
Anna had always dealt with her scars differently—and Elsa didn't doubt her sister had scars. But where she had buried them, had tried her hardest to hide them until they were practically ripped out of her hands and forced out into the open, Anna had always talked about her pains, had always been nothing but open and honest. If she'd ever had any trouble sleeping because of nightmares Elsa was genuinely unaware of it, and even the brief thought of sharing this particular burden with her younger sister hurt. It still… stung to realize, in some ways, that she was the last person carrying this particular part of Iduna.
She didn't say any of this, of course, and she hadn't thought any of it showed on her face very much, but something must have given her away because golden-brown eyes softened. "Now that you're back you can write it down," the other woman said. "That recipe, I mean."
Elsa snorted, and now it was her turn to lift a brow. "You still want me to remember how to make that after what happened between us?"
She hadn't meant to word it like that. She hadn't! She'd just been stating a truth, but only a second after the words left her mouth she realized how they sounded and immediately wished she had the magical ability to physically yank words back into her body. Unfortunately she hadn't thought before speaking, and now something entirely too wicked was sparking in Honeymaren's eyes at the blonde's words. After a moment she draped an arm over her reindeer as she pressed into her side, grinning.
It wasn't fair that Elsa simultaneously didn't like what that grin meant and yet found it insanely attractive. It wasn't fair at all. She was already nearly melting into the ground as it was as all of the blood rushed into her face, and how she felt about that grin wasn't helping.
"So I don't have pretty eyes?" Honeymaren asked innocently, still grinning, and then she collapsed into laughter as Elsa groaned, burying her face in her hands. The sudden jolt of movement made Bruni squawk in disapproval and he hopped off of her to more stable ground. Considering her emotional state at the moment, she found she didn't blame him. She had the distinct feeling ice was forming at her feet.
"If I say you do can we forget that ever happened?" she muttered, feeling her blush spread up to her ears and down her neck as Honeymaren's laughter faded into quiet giggles.
"Should I point out that you're the one who made it sound like you tried to-"
"No."
The brunette swallowed her laughter gamely, smiling when Elsa risked peeking at her from between her fingers. "Then you can say I have pretty eyes," she said. "But uh, sorry, I think it's going to be pretty hard for me to forget it happened."
Elsa let her hands fall away from her face and resisted the urge to sigh. Of course it wouldn't be that easy; it never was for her, when it came to this sort of thing. If nothing else, she supposed she was lucky it had only happened with two people so far who cared about her, and not someone who was inclined to use that sort of information against her. Maybe this whole moment, awkward as it was, was an opportunity. She had business to discuss and of course she would discuss it, because it was important and she wasn't going to completely ignore her duty as a representative of Arendelle, but…
This was a chance though, now that they were already talking about it. Elsa was painfully aware that none of her behavior had been appropriate, and she had thought long and hard about apologizing for it during her time in Arendelle when Anna had given her a rare moment to catch her breath. She'd been rude to leave Honeymaren the way she had, especially after everything the other woman had done for her since she had decided to stay in the forest with the Northuldra, and her behavior as she had been crashing…
It had crossed a line. Obviously. There was no question about that, regardless of how Honeymaren had reacted to it at the time. She'd been kind enough to not bring it up after, but Elsa remembered it all clearly after a few days of rest and knew she had definitely gotten too close to her friend, as much as some part of her had enjoyed it. Anna had her request and she knew that was important, but Yelena had wanted Honeymaren involved and the whole thing would die a quick death if Elsa didn't clear the air between them.
"Actually," she began, fidgeting with her hands and fighting the urge to look away, "can we—can we talk about that? If it's okay with you, I mean, but… I want to talk about it. Or, well, I-I want to apologize, more specifically."
Her nerves must have given away how serious this was, because she saw the way her friend softened before she nodded. She turned back to her reindeer and murmured something into her ear, giving the animal a gentle pat as it left them to join a few of her herd mates. "We can sit here," she said, gesturing towards a rock near the center of the meadow. "That way I can keep on eye on these guys and see if anyone is approaching us."
Elsa followed her the few steps to the rock and cautiously settled down next to Honeymaren, keeping a respectable distance between them. She didn't need to send the Nokk away; the spirit had already departed, sensing its role for the time being was complete, and Bruni wasted no time scrambling up onto her knee now that she was reasonably still, curling up into a small ball. "You don't have the whole herd today?"
Honeymaren shook her head, leaning back against the rock and stretching. "Just some of the elderly ones who can't move very well. Ryder took the others to a different area of the forest so we don't over graze. He'll be with them for awhile, so we should be okay."
Right. That was a good thing. Because Elsa wanted to talk.
She wasn't brave this time; she should have been, but she wasn't. She lowered her gaze to where Bruni was curled up on her knee and quietly ran a grounding hand over his back, swallowing. "I just wanted to apologize for what I did before I left for Arendelle. I was short with you when you were trying to help, and that was… that was wrong of me."
"I was actually a little annoyed by that, I won't lie," Honeymaren sighed.
"I don't blame you. I'm… I'm sorry. I should have handled it better."
There was a moment of silence as the brunette thought that over. She was quiet long enough that Elsa risked a glance at her, wanting to at least get a glimpse of what she was thinking, and she blinked when their eyes met. Her friend chuckled, gently bumping their shoulders together. "There we go," she said softly. "I was wondering if you'd ever look at me."
"Um." Elsa resisted the urge to look away. "I'm… sorry?"
"You've already apologized once, Elsa, you're fine." Honeymaren gave her another bump, affectionate, and settled down a little closer to her than she'd been when they'd first sat down and started talking. "Honestly, I got over it pretty quickly." She paused for a moment, then rubbed the back of her neck. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, I'm just… curious."
"Go ahead."
"Was that the first time you've… you know, talked to someone about how the problems you're experiencing? Besides Anna, obviously, I assume you talked to her about it in Arendelle."
"… No." It was a whisper, hoarse, and Elsa's eyes dropped down to Bruni again as he stirred, sensing his fellow spirit's distress. "I mean, not, not exactly. I didn't talk to him about it, really, but he… he saw me at one of my worst moments. He saw what the problem was pretty clearly."
"I assume he didn't take it well."
A bark of laughter escaped the former queen; they were close enough together that she felt Honeymaren jolt slightly at the rough sound of it and Bruni squeaked, concerned and fully awake now. She rested a soothing hand on his head, swallowing to compose herself. "It's a very long story," she said when she'd managed to calm down a little. "To try and keep it short, he broke my sister's heart and tried to kill me after I trusted him enough to let my guard down around him."
The stunned silence that followed her statement almost made her laugh again. Almost.
"So yeah," she sighed, meeting Honeymaren's gaze and smiling weakly. "You could say he didn't take it well, I guess."
"That's a heck of an understatement." The huntress grimaced. "I'm—I'm sorry if I brought back bad memories, from the way you reacted I was just wondering. I shouldn't have asked."
"You're fine, Honeymaren. You told me I didn't have to answer you if I didn't want to." Bruni had crept further up her leg, pressing comforting into her hip as he curled into a ball again, and the warmth of him was soothing. "You deserved to know, anyway, it's not… it's not fair that I compared you to him like that, even in my thoughts. You've been nothing but kind to me since I decided to stay here in the forest."
Elsa had rested her free hand on ground between her and Honeymaren as they talked, flexing her fingers absently to ward off the chill that always seemed to swell inside of her whenever she talked about Hans. As she watched, the other woman hesitated, then tentatively reached her hand. "Is this okay?" she asked, not moving an inch.
The blonde nodded, following up with a soft "Yes" a moment after when she realized words would probably help more as confirmation even though Honeymaren could see her. The brunette wasted no time with permission granted; she gave Elsa a reassuring smile as she rested her hand over hers, squeezing gently. Ice blue eyes dropped to their hands, as the other woman felt sudden warmth bloom to combat the magic pulsing through her veins from old memories. After a moment of thought Elsa inhaled quietly and turned her hand over, her palm meeting Honeymaren's, and laced their fingers together.
The warmth spread throughout her body, calming the blizzard that had started to swirl inside of her. Honeymaren didn't pull away, and Elsa took that as another good sign.
"Funny thing about thoughts," her friend murmured, and the fifth spirit looked up at her again. "You can't always control where they go, especially with painful memories." She gave Elsa's hand another squeeze. "Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me, Elsa."
Elsa shrugged. "You deserved to know. Like I said, you've been very kind to me. Even before I decided to stay here with the Northuldra, you were kind."
"You keep saying that like I needed a reason to just be nice."
She snorted. It wasn't the sort of sound expected of a queen, but she wasn't a queen anymore. "Hans had a reason." She caught herself a moment later and winced, sighing as she rubbed her eyes with her free hand. "Sorry, I'm sorry. That's not fair."
Honeymaren didn't say anything, though Elsa could feel her eyes on her. She simply held her hand, her grip gentle and warm, and waited. She lowered her other hand back down to Bruni, blowing out a breath as he nuzzled into her fingers.
"… It's funny," she finally murmured. "I had no idea he got to me like this. We weren't even particularly close. I think we only spoke to each other three, maybe four times."
"Did you trust him?"
"Not—not at first. Anna did immediately, but she was… our parents, they..." Elsa grimaced. The words were there, she could feel them in her throat, but she couldn't say them. Didn't know how to say them, without making it seem like Agnarr and Iduna hadn't cared. They had, she'd known they had, but they'd gotten so much wrong despite their best intentions. It was still painful for her to admit that, even six years later.
"But you trusted him eventually," Honeymaren coaxed, gracefully side stepping the struggle she saw her friend going through, and that gentle understanding was back in her eyes.
It made Elsa want to run and hide. Made her want to slam the door shut behind her and throw away the key.
It made Elsa want to stand and face what came next. Made her want to open the door and step through it to see what was on the other side.
She didn't know how to put that into words either, so she simply smiled gratefully at the other woman for avoiding the topic of her parents. "Eventually," she said. "He—he saw me at my worst and he said he didn't see me as a monster. I thought he was a good enough man to look after Anna, once I was gone." The smile twisted into a grimace. "Thinking back on it now, maybe he was lying when he said those words to me. I don't know. He wasn't even the first person to say to me that he didn't think I was a monster, Anna followed me up the mountain first, but I was just… I was so scared of hurting her then that nothing she was actually saying got through to me."
Honeymaren shrugged, after a moment. "You don't need to justify it. Even if it was only a little, you let your guard down enough to trust him with something important to you, and he ended up using it against you. That's going to hurt no matter what."
Elsa didn't have a response to that; any words she thought of melted on her tongue before they even left her mouth, so she contented herself with a quiet hum in response as she dropped her gaze to their still joined hands. "I think I got scared," she murmured.
"Before you left for Arendelle?" There was no accusation there—just the question.
"Yes. Hans was—even when I started to trust him, it wasn't anything I did, if that makes sense? He saw what was happening because of me and he reacted to it. The only person I've ever opened up to on my own was… was Anna, before I met you. I'm, um..." Elsa laughed nervously, hating the way she felt faint warmth flood her cheeks. "I'm not usually very… warm, I guess? To people I don't know. Even talking to you when I first came here was… different, for me."
"You and Kristoff seem like family."
"We are! We are, I love him, but that wasn't—that wasn't me, either. We met through Anna and figured each other out because we both love her." It had certainly been easier than Elsa had expected, too, bonding with Kristoff, but it had helped that fundamentally they were the same: two quiet people who really didn't socialize. Without Anna's influence, she was fairly sure they never would have bothered with each other. She couldn't imagine it now—Kristoff was, in so many ways, a brother to her—but it was the truth, knowing how he was and knowing how she was.
Honeymaren tilted her head slightly, grinning. "So I was your first?"
"… Please don't word it like that."
"Sorry."
Elsa giggled, despite the fact that she could definitely tell her blush had gotten deeper. "No you aren't."
"No I'm not," Honeymaren admitted. "Especially since it got you to laugh."
Without hesitating, the blonde scooped Bruni up into her free hand and threw him at her friend—gently, of course, and he was in a semi-normal state so it wouldn't have done much damage when he made contact, but it was still worth it to hear the brunette yelp as the salamander collided with her body and briefly let off steam before he realized he was touching a regular person and not a fellow spirit. Bruni for his part simply squeaked in delight as he tumbled down into Honeymaren's lap, thoroughly enjoying the whole thing, and curled up in a tight ball once he had settled in one place.
"Back to what I was saying before you decided to be funny-"
"I just want to say it was still totally worth it."
Elsa pressed her hand to her mouth, trying and partially failing to muffle the laughter she could feel bubbling up inside her. It was a losing battle though and she finally gave in, collapsing into giggles and letting it ride out as Honeymaren chuckled next to her. She held on to her hand maybe a little too tightly through the whole thing, but the other woman didn't ask her to let go, and it… it felt nice. This all felt nice. Very unexpected, but still nice.
Honeymaren's grin had softened into a smile, once Elsa's laughter had finally faded. "See?" she said, and her voice was gentle. "You're plenty warm."
"When I want to be," she replied instantly, and appreciated the way the huntress bit her tongue on the retort she clearly wanted to say. "And this is all with you, so that kind of proves my whole point that you've just been… different, for me." She went quiet for a moment, then inhaled shakily. "And I think that's why I got so scared. I've never done this before, and the last time I even got close the person I let in ended up trying to kill me."
"I don't think it should count when the person in question was probably manipulating you, Elsa."
"I still let him in."
Honeymaren gently tugged her hand free and despite herself Elsa flinched, wondering if something she had said or done had finally been too much. Then she wasn't wondering anything at all, because the brunette had carefully set Bruni aside and had scooted close enough to gently grip her face with both hands, making their eyes meet. Her hold was loose enough that Elsa could have pulled away if she wanted to, but she was suddenly in no rush to move at all. Honeymaren's eyes were intense, almost golden, and she couldn't have looked away even if her life depended on it.
"I don't know everything that happened between you and this Hans," she began, then hesitated and took a deep breath as if to calm herself. "Obviously. But you need to stop… doing that."
Elsa swallowed. "Stop doing what?"
"Blaming yourself for it. It sounds like you were weak, or scared, or vulnerable in some way and he took advantage of that, and that isn't your fault, Elsa, okay? Being scared after that is completely, totally justified and I get it. You trusted him, and he betrayed that trust. And I know, I know I said before that something like that shouldn't count, but it clearly did to you and that's okay, too." Honeymaren inhaled quietly and seemed to force herself to relax, easing back a little. "Just… stop apologizing to me about it, and stop blaming yourself for letting him in. Yeah, I got annoyed before, but only because you ran off without explaining anything. Everything else you're feeling about me is totally justified, and I don't mind doing this at your pace if it helps you at all."
She needed to swallow again, Elsa thought hazily. She needed to do something, because somewhere in Honeymaren's speech her mouth had gone suddenly, painfully dry. But every attempt to try and swallow was just a thought with how hot and tight her throat was suddenly feeling, and all she could do was grip her friend—because Honeymaren was her friend, she was, and that confirmation made something painful in the best way possible lance through her chest—by her wrists as she closed her eyes, sucking in a ragged, shaking breath. She'd never doubted that particular thought, that Honeymaren was her friend, but she'd tied it up so much into the idea that she was so kind, so patient, so open and honest that she hadn't even realized that until this moment, a part of her had still been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"So I just, um..." The brunette trailed off, and her awkward silence made Elsa open her eyes again; she was uncertain now, hesitant, as she eased her hands down from her face. "I just, I need to know what you want from me now, I guess. Because I know I want us to be friends, I've really liked us being friends, but… I don't want to cross any lines."
She hadn't pulled away from the blonde's grip on her wrists, and the distance between them was still almost laughably small even though she had pulled away some presumably to give her room to breathe. Elsa needed to say something now; she knew the power of words, she knew that was what Honeymaren was looking for. Some kind of verbal confirmation, easy to understand and fall back on, for where they went from this moment.
Elsa needed to say something. She knew that. The thing was, what she had originally intended to just be a short apology before shifting to other topics had ended up becoming a full blown soul baring session, and the thing about baring one's soul was that often times it took up a great deal of energy. Continuing from that particular fact, Elsa didn't have a large store of energy at the moment; she'd certainly slept more during her return to Arendelle than she had in recent memory, but it overall it was comparable to a small drop of water in a very large pond.
The end result was that she had just finished an emotionally draining conversation wherein the other half of said conversation was waiting for her to say something, and she was finding she didn't have the energy to come up with anything matching what Honeymaren had said to her. Something short and sweet, maybe, but Elsa had never been the smoothest sort about that kind of thing.
Well, Anna had mentioned during her visit to Arendelle—with a mix of sheepishness and pride—that she had drawn some of her own cues as the new queen from Elsa's behavior during her reign. While the blonde didn't think she was the best person to draw inspiration from, maybe she could cheat this once and take a page out of her sister's book. Anna always had inspired her, after all.
Feel it, don't conceal it.
Open the door.
"You're my friend," Elsa breathed, and the words were so soft that she was certain she didn't say them at all; but she must have, because Honeymaren smiled, and it was soft and bright and everything. "You're my friend," she repeated, a little louder, and even though she pulled away from the other woman's grip on her face, she didn't let go of her wrists. "I want us to be friends, I might just be… slow about everything else you said, for awhile. I tend to move slowly. But I've liked, I've liked us being friends, too."
"Okay." Honeymaren was still smiling as she shifted, pulling away gently and settling back against the rock they'd both been leaning on a moment ago. "I can work with that, Elsa. You'll find I'm a very patient person."
"I already know you're a patient person, Honeymaren. Considering how you've been handling… this whole situation with me." Elsa settled down against the rock next to Honeymaren, after only the slightest hesitation, mindful of the fact that there still wasn't much distance between them.
"I'm also a very patient person with my friends."
"I'm starting to get the feeling you're just a patient person in general."
Honeymaren chuckled, closing her eyes with an amused hum. "I like to say I am," she said. "Ryder might not always agree with me, but I like to believe he doesn't count. It's different with your sibling."
"It is," Elsa agreed. Her thoughts drifted briefly to Anna, but her eyes were very much on the woman beside her. "I, um, need to talk to you about something regarding my sister, actually."
Honeymaren cracked open an eye look at her. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. But… do you think it could wait a little longer? I want—I want to try something. I'm still… really tired, and I wanted to see if this might help."
"You want to cuddle into me again because it helps you sleep?"
Elsa choked. She wasn't eating anything, she just sort of choked on air. The sound of it coupled with her sudden deep blush made Honeymaren collapse into laughter, something so deep that she shook with the force of it.
"Elsa," she managed to gasp out when her giggles faded enough for her to speak, "you do realize you've already fallen asleep on me twice before now, right?"
"I—have I?" Elsa squeaked, feeling her blush deepen at this information.
"Oh, yeah. You fell asleep against my back after we found those herbs for your tea returning to the tribe, and when you nearly fell off the Nokk you were out for a few hours on my shoulder. I think you fell asleep while I was carrying you. You were kind of loopy at the time, though, so I'm not shocked you don't remember."
"I…" The blonde cleared her throat, swallowing back the immediate apology that nearly forced itself past her lips. "You never said anything."
"I didn't mind. I was glad you trusted me so much to do it in the first place, and honestly…" Now Honeymaren blushed, faintly, fiddling with her hands. "I liked it. I liked, I don't know, that you thought we were close enough that it was okay, even if you were exhausted."
Oh.
Oh.
That was something to think about… later. After she'd gotten some sleep, and they'd both figured out how their friendship was going to look like from this moment on, they'd come back to this conversation and go deeper into everything that was being implied and left unsaid. There was time for them to do that, now, and the thought of it sent a slight shiver down Elsa's back.
The door was open, just a crack. It was a start.
Honeymaren was still staring at her hands, even as her blush began to fade, and Elsa saw her chance. She'd said she'd liked it, and the former queen had already fallen asleep on her twice without any complaints. Surely luck was on her side and the third time would be the charm?
Elsa hoped so.
She scooted closer before she could think about it too deeply, closing the distance between them and pressing into Honeymaren's side. After only a moment's hesitation she rested her head against the brunette's shoulder and sighed, closing her eyes and trying not to hold her breath for the rejection she was still half sure was coming despite her friend's words.
Honeymaren jolted, but only for a moment; right when Elsa was starting to wonder if she had finally pushed too far, the other woman relaxed with a quiet breath and leaned back into her, hesitantly draping an arm over her shoulders and tucking the blonde more comfortably into her. After another moment, she shifted a little and rested her cheek against pale strands of hair, closing her eyes as well.
And as Elsa finally had the best sleep she'd had since leaving Arendelle, the door she'd started to crack open moved just a few more inches.
Write some Elsamaren, I thought. It'll be a short and fluffy fic about them napping together, I thought.