Elsa is a mask of frost and snow.
Clear, pristine, and umblemished is the ice she creates. In the face of danger she remains reserved. Cold, harsh eyes that look down upon all those who endanger her people are locked into her face the same way she was locked out of their lives.
She had been filled with fear, once. Nowadays she sometimes believes that she is the embodiment of fear itself.
There are whispers in the wind, quiet but true. Even the most silent of citizens is unable to hide themselves from a curious wind spirit. A spirit so eager to please their new friend, that they always seem to find themselves reporting everything they hear to the mistress of ice. Parroting words from passing merchants, gossiping housewives, and even the honest voices of children who only know how to speak the truth.
Before she was a spirit, she was a queen. Before she was a queen, she was a princess. And before she knew what it meant to be a princess, she was just like any other child. Armed with these thoughts, she couldn't say that she did not know how they felt.
Their former queen had been a mysterious force since the day she was born. From the first frozen tear that slipped from her eyes, she had stolen the hearts of all those around her. Some with love, and some with intense disquiet. Not fear, for nobody could ever say such a thing in her presence. The only two people who would ever dare to tell her had left so quickly. Any traces of her parents' love had been lost in the fragile silk gloves that used to hold her hands so tightly.
On freezing winter nights where the only heat was the trickling warmth of the fireplace, families would huddle together and tell tales.
Elsa is a legend.
Born with hair so light it bordered on platinum, her skin had looked so pale she seemed ghostly in the sun. She was not your average storybook princess, and nobody had thought otherwise.
Children used to hear stories of damsels in distress, modest princely knights, and the fabled true love's kiss. Those children are the ones telling stories now.
Those very same children were now grown, and their narratives lived through her, as if she were the embodiment of their very own fairytale princess come to life.
But princesses typically did not have their own magic. Princesses were supposed to be destined for death and darkness, which was the only trait Elsa seemed to share with the rest. Yes, she was cursed. Of course she knew that. Yet she never dreamed of a dashing young prince to save her from her supposed distress.
Her story went on as we know it now. Inseperable sisters. A life changing childhood accident. Locked gates. Irreversible loss. A coronation gone wrong. A frozen heart.
And an act of true love.
To the young children growing with the story of their very own snow queen, Elsa is majestic. An empowering figure of prowess and righteousness, someone to look upon when all feels lost.
The moral of the story is always the same, but not in the way most are to expect. True love triumphs all, but that is old news to the ears of anyone who had been blessed with the legend. No, for you see, the true moral lies within the warmth of her smile.
Elsa is incorrigible.
Anna can see what all her beloved subjects choose to see. She really does. The elegance her beloved sister had exuded since the moment she stepped into her role as a royal had never faded once, not even when she had become something much more than just human.
She had an ethereal quality to her, that, Anna had to once again agree with. She seemed untouchable, and the sister she had locked away for all those years could understand how that conclusion could come to mind. The feeling of being so close to someone, yet never actually knowing who that person is, could drive a princess mad.
Things had been awkward at first. Dinners were... interesting affairs. The first few days had Anna speaking quietly into the palm of her hand. Silently revering the sister she had fallen apart from so painfully. The next coming weeks had Anna giggling over mouthfuls of food whenever Elsa would make a comical remark or sarcastic quip about how her day went. And the following years brought a comfort both royals never knew they needed so badly.
Being next to her sister made Anna think about just how much they had missed. Her thoughts turn to daydreams, and she thinks on the many hours that had managed to slip through their hands, and how the future would have ended if they had had tighter grasps.
Yet she couldn't bring herself to face Elsa the way Arendelle's citizens do. The looks of awe and excitement on their faces could never be wiped off anymore. No thanks to the royal family's misadventures.
The fact that Olaf can't keep himself from telling everyone what happened that fateful day in excruciating detail had not helped one bit.
To Anna, Elsa shone brighter than fresh powder on the first days of winter. While most people see a desolate mountain, isolated and cold in nature, she could see the light shining behind snowy peaks of stone. Elsa had a heart big enough to hold the world, but her legs could barely support the weight.
Elsa was unnervingly heroic. When nobody is looking, she freezes danger in its tracks. Quite literally. Ever since Elsa had realized who she was, and where her purpose in the kingdom truly resided, not one man had fallen in the forests since.
A friendly hunter who had one too many mugs of mead had once told Olaf of the time the goddess of the hunt had blessed his travels. He regales Olaf with the tale so viciously that Olaf begins to realize that alcohol isn't that great, even if he'si all grown up now.
The hunter speaks of a day when dusk had broken in, and light had faded quickly. He had lost track of time, and had been desperate to not return to his home empty-handed. Lady luck had not seemed to be on his side today, and he had trekked back cold and sodden.
Through his hazy stomping through the snow, he heard several low growls and snarls. He dared not look back, fearing for his himself as yellow pinpricks of light reflected themsleves unto the crossbow he had been holding on for dear life.
He had ran harder than he thought he was able to, the snow making way loudly in his ears. He thought he could make it in time, as he could see a sliver of the soft glow from the familiar town in the evening light.
Fate seemed to make its own decisions as he fell to ground with a sharp thud. His leg painfully twisting with the pressure from a tree root deceitfully hidden into the powdery ice. He screamed, not for his life, but for his wife and children waiting for him by the hearth.
As he said his final prayers, a wolf as big as cattle jumped into the air, all razor sharp teeth and painful claws. He closed his eyes, but the pain never came. A whiny yelp resonated through the forest, along with several other barks and pained noises.
He hesitatingly cracks one eyelid open, and sees a graceful spirit effortlessly gliding in the air. No, a goddess.
Snow billows around her saintly visage, a small blizzard that is only hers to control. He sees her hands, decievingly thin, with fingers that betray the absolute control she has over the winter cold.
The pain in his leg is too much for the veteran, and before he knew it he was back at home, sipping at warm soup and confusedly listening to his sobbing family members. His wife tells him he had been knocked out on their doorstep, and she had worried herself sick over his disheveled appearance and extremely apparent injury.
A winter miracle that he returned safe, they say.
However, the hunter was simply worked up. He was grateful and relieved, but he wasn't able to step back into the neighboring forest for at least a week, haunted by howls and shining beauties.
Anna hated that story. She understood that her sister had enough love for the whole country, but she drew the line at reckless endangerment. Anna didn't care about what Elsa would say in her fits of self-defense.
It didn't make a lick of sense to the newly minted queen. She didn't care if Elsa didn't need to eat, because she knew the warmth of a good meal would keep the ice spirit happy and nostalgic. She couldn't be bothered by the fact that Elsa didn't need to sleep. The former queen would gaze into the mountains, yearning for the ice and cold, listening to the whispered songs praying to her power that only she could hear, and Anna would simply tug her back into bed the same way a mother would to a wandering child.
Elsa would always be her kind older sister. Even when Anna had become 30, with three wonderful children under her watch, a dazzling smile from the man she had loved for forever, and the love and respect from all her citizens. Even when Anna had one or two wrinkles, stemmed from the stress and energy she had to delegate to both the kingdom and her loving family.
Even when Elsa looked as youthful as the day she had entered the frosty cavern she now called home. Nobody explicitly spoke of her young looks, forever pale and light. They had simply accepted it as another thing that made Elsa of Arendelle so unique and wonderful. The only one who could not accept it was the woman herself.
"I'll outlive you." She sobs. "I'll outlive all of you."
Anna grits her teeth into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and Elsa cringes. A baleful sigh leaves the queen's mouth, and she slowly moves her hand through her sister's now-stark-white hair. The action didn't hold as much comfort as it did when their mother used to do it, but reminiscing about the past had been the least of Elsa's worries when the future seemed so bleak without Anna.
Anna had Kristoff, and Elsa should have been content with that. Yet she wanted more, and Anna could see it in her eyes.
"You will, and I can't sugarcoat that." Anna whispers, in a voice so quiet that Elsa must have imagined the boisterous teenager who had once roamed the castle halls. "But there's so much more to life than just me and Kristoff. I trust you with ny life, and you know that right?"
Elsa nods. The vulnerability she allows herself to show almost disgusts her, but Arendelle's queen is the one person she can give all of herself to. Anna had been her guiding light for so long, a beacon that outshined the sun. Her light when times had been dark, when it felt like her power would consume her as nights grew colder and colder into winter. Frost and rime would grow to be her best friends without Anna by her side, she thought.
"Protect the kingdom. Protect my- our- people." She's holding on tightly to Elsa's hand. Her strength almost as valiant as it was when she was 18. With her years fast approaching 60, Anna could barely believe that her snow queen had been so afraid all of those years. It seemed that keeping to herself was a habit she had yet to let go of.
"Protect our family, and our family's family."
Elsa hugged her fiercely.
"Just be yourself Elsa, because this world is our legacy." She lifts her eyes up to the windows. The very same windows that used to be her only salvation in this once isolated castle. "And through that legacy, I will never leave you."
In the warmth of Elsa's smile, one can see the happiness of a person who is true to themselves. A person who has learned from their own hardships and is not afraid to show herself to the world. Once upon a time she had been a weak minded and sheltered princess, but meeting Anna again made her remember a feeling that she had stuffed inside her for a very long time. A feeling she had promised herself the moment she had laid her young inquisitive eyes upon Anna's scrunched up newborn face.
She knows better than to hide herself.
We know better.
BONUS:
Elsa is very scary!
On the day of his and Anna's wedding, Kristoff had been brought into a quiet palace corner. Elsa had given him a stern look, one that said everything with the single rise of her eyebrow. He supposed that with their father gone, she would have to give him the age-old man to man talk one would have before a daughter's wedding.
Instead Elsa kneeled on one knee- and BOY, did that freak him out- and she pleaded with him. She made him promise to always be true to Anna before the wedding ceremony had even started. He had never been so terrified of Elsa in that moment.
It was in the lilt of her voice, the slight difference in her normal kneeling stance, and the body language that screamed I will pounce on you if you don't agree with me. To Kristoff, it felt less like a respectful action and more like the threat of constant vigilance.
In the end she stood up and shook his hand. The manly sort of way. With a quick farewell she had left to find her sister and search for anything that needed her assistance in that wonderful morning.
The rest of the day had been insane for Kristoff, who would soon learn to severely disregard the looks he got when people realized that his dress clothes had been frozen permafrost solid.