Thanks go out to my reviewers silverheartlugia2000, The Keeper of Worlds, God of the Challenge and Luckenhaft! I appreciate the support of this small group~ Special thanks to my betas Faulty Paragon (for really giving me insight on emotional character arcs) and Rose Starre (for nailing those prepositionals)!
Chapter 4: many resolves
Elsa thought Sora was energetic before, but she hadn't realized how much the cold was dampening his mood. With their upgraded wardrobe comes torrential enthusiasm and a pace edging more towards running than walking as Sora traces every side-path and cave down the mountain. Elsa doesn't see the point of it until Sora brushes snow off a mound and reveals an aged chest.
Once is good fortune, but when Sora finds the fourth chest atop a small outcropping half inside the mountain, Elsa is goggling.
"How are you finding these?" she demands.
Sora grins and aims his tower-like weapon at the treasure chest, unlocking it with magic. "These are everywhere; you just have to look enough."
A fifth, sixth, and seventh chest prove him right. The contents vary from potions to enchanted gear that offsets the effect of ice. Her three companions garb themselves with the spoils and give her a ring with protective enchantments woven through the band. She doesn't mind Sora's mad luck after a while.
There's a lot about exploring the mountain she doesn't mind. Her three companions, for one. She edges around the title 'friends' for the first time as an adult and it doesn't feel shuttered and doubtful like she anticipated. Just fitting, like the word belongs between the gaps in their laughter. Smiles flow easier across her lips, and Sora feeds off it in a cycle that reminds her of familiarity and siblinghood.
Sora laughs all the way around the mountain, snapping pictures (and still not explaining the device to Elsa). He gathers elderberries from bushes and mushrooms under logs, and almost starts an avalanche by laughing too hard. She almost doesn't make him a hat when he asks because she doesn't want to give him more energy, but when he says the cold makes his smiles hurt, she caves. A warm knit cap with a fur ball to match his boots soon nestles atop his head.
His smiles are even wider after that.
Elsa is enjoying their diversion, but a glance at the nearing Castletown is enough to remind her why they're leaving the mountain. They must set things right.
"Sora!" she calls. He's raced ahead of her lagging pace and around a corner. Not for the first time. "Let's stop messing around and get to Castletown."
"Elsa's right," Donald says from beside her. He isn't panting like she is, but not even Donald and Goofy can keep up with Sora's sudden energy rush.
No reply, just the whistling wind around the bend of rocks. The three walk forward through the ravine. Elsa winces as the shade from the rocks becomes blinding sunlight reflected off the snow.
She's even less prepared for the snow that collides with her face from the side. Donald and Goofy are hit too.
Heartless.
She doesn't think. Her arms fly out, power reacting to defend herself.
A split-second later her eyes adjust and the blue figure spinning through the air isn't the Heartless.
It's Sora.
Her heart stops for a moment.
He promised he would be careful around her— he knows better than to do a sneak attack on her— she explained already what happened to Anna— and he's seen what she can do— she's dangerous— how many times had she told him to be careful—
And yet, and yet all of it comes down to Elsa and her stupid power and her lack of control.
Sora lands hard in the snow and she hears Donald and Goofy calling out to him.
All three of them start towards him, but Elsa hesitates, already knows what she'll see— Anna's pallid face peeks through her memories, her whitening hair and the shivers and must it really happen again?
"Woah, that has some kick to it."
She blinks hard, water catching in her eyelashes as Sora sits up. His hand rubs over his heart.
"You idiot!" Donald shouts and Sora whines.
He isn't… shivering. His skin is still a deep tan of long summer.
Sora starts to stand but the movement is aborted when Elsa rushes him and knocks him back in the snow. His new hat is brushed to the side. Her hands, shaking, trembling run through his hair looking for the hint of white, the sign of a curse from her power, the lingering reminder she sees in Anna.
All she finds is brunet.
Her hands fall to his arms. She… she did hit him, right? He spiraled through the air, she thought. Maybe she missed, but if she didn't then what—
"Breathe, Elsa," Sora says, hand running over her shoulder. In her anxiety, magic is still leaking through her fingers onto him. She gasps and cuts the flow, but he still isn't affected.
"I— I don't understand. You aren't— I hit you and then— Anna had to be cured, but you—"
"Yeah, that was strong!" Sora says, "But I think your clothes took the brunt of the hit." He removes his hand from his chest and Elsa sees that the fabric beneath has turned a little lighter shade of teal.
With a shaky hand, she touches the part of the fabric and feels fresh magic being absorbed into his clothes. Sora beneath them is… safe. It takes her a long moment to realize that her nightmare isn't playing out in real life. Sora is okay. She struck him full-force with her powers and yet—
"Your clothes protected me," Sora smiles.
"I'm the one who hit you in the first place," she says, lips numb. He sits up beside her in the snow, hand still on her shoulder trying to rub the shock out of her system.
"Yeah, and you protected me too…" Sora says. "Your clothes are really something."
Elsa tries to wrap her mind around the idea as the shock fades out. Her magic can cancel itself out. She… she protected Sora from herself. And no one was hurt. If this is true, it might mean she has a way to protect other people from her magic.
She has a way to protect Anna.
Sora stands up. "Do it again. So you know it isn't a fluke."
Donald groans and Goofy chuckles, but neither objects. Instead, their eyes rest on Elsa with something like concern.
She doesn't want to hit him again… but she needs to know. Elsa shakes when she stands.
Sora extends his arms like a tree, making an easy target. In her nerves, the magic springs to her hand and she releases it at him, the smallest shot she can manage. It hits him and absorbs into the fabric. A few seconds later the clothes even out in shade.
She shoots a stronger one, and he braces himself for the impact that once more disperses into the cloth. His boots push deeper in the snow, but that's it. Sora smiles.
He's unharmed. She can cancel out her magic. Elsa exhales.
"Does this mean we can have a snowball fight?" Sora play-whispers.
Elsa startles from her shock and she laughs, Goofy along with her.
Donald lets out a long groan, but even he has some bright affection in his eyes for her. As though he could possibly understand what all of this means to Elsa.
"Fine. We can have a snowball fight," Donald says. "But not too long of one, we still have to—"
"Great, I call Elsa! Ready, set, three!" Sora's hand loops around Elsa's and he starts dashing away.
"What, Sora?!" Donald calls, but he's left in the dust.
"Sora!" Elsa shouts, untangling her arm from his. She's still high and shaking from the relief and the sudden turn of events is almost too much for her. Power drawn by her strong emotions hovers on the tips of her fingers, she reacts to quieten it but— it can't hurt the others, she realizes.
The idea starts to solidify a little more against the background of Sora's clothes and their shifting hues.
She can protect others from her powers. Quelling them isn't necessary.
Something somewhere unclenches and her magic slips through the air around her. Sora and she watch it spiral and curl for a moment.
Sora beams. "Team sorceress, right?"
And she guesses so.
She augments her shoes to handle the flat terrain better and tightens her hair tie. "If you think you can keep up," Elsa says as she starts spinning her hands.
"I can keep— woah." Sora stares as the mountain of snowballs settles, a few rolling off the top.
"Queen's don't play, they win," Elsa says. Her hands skate battle plans into the snow with easy to follow lines and she sees Sora getting more and more excited, even as she's certain 90% of this will fly out of his head when the battle in earnest begins.
When it does commence, her hands do shake as she casts at her new friends, but she doesn't falter.
[The following entry in Jimmy's journal is illegible. The details of the battle and subterfuge have been blotted out by slush and snow, with enough magic to pierce the wards guarding the journal and sufficiently blur the majority of the fight. Written at the end beside the phrase 'winners' is one word: 'sorceress.']
Elsa bends over panting hard. Beside her, she hears a thump as Sora becomes one with the hill.
"Oh man, that was fun!" Finally, even the energetic Sora is out of breath. "That thing you did with the ice pigeons—"
"I didn't even know I could make birds that would fly," she gasps out. "And the graviga you used by the trees—"
"I didn't think they'd ever dig themselves out!" Sora laughs. "But of course Donald—"
"With that incredible spell. What was that?!" she asks, crouching beside him. The ice is a cool balm on her over-worked form.
He looks at her from his divot in the snowbank. "Grandmagic," he whispers. "I can't believe we pushed him to that."
"Grandmagic? How does it work?" she asks.
"When emotions run high and your heart is centered on one thing, you can access grandmagic, which is a league all on its own. I can use it too, sometimes," Sora says.
She recalls the blazing tornado of fire Donald summoned. Perhaps when she set off the everlasting winter in Arendelle she used grandmagic without realizing.
Elsa wonders if undoing Arendelle's ice might be possible by canceling her magic out. The power she uses on clothes and the one she uses for attacking originate from different emotional places. The clothes magic she used for Sora, Donald, and Goofy draws on her fondness for them. That magic cancels out her ice's attack which comes from anxiety and self-preservation. Perhaps if she locates the right place within herself, she can undo the curse on Arendelle…
Her magic freezes and hurts those around her, but it also protects. It warms the people who wear it. Life is born from her magic, the pigeons and Olaf. Yes, her magic is many things, and she's only scratched the surface of what she can be. For the first time, she considers that the power to fix everything is something she possesses after all.
She wants to fix it herself, she realizes.
"Sora, before you and Donald try to melt the ice, I want to try first," she says. Even if she fails, it seems possible. More than that, it's important for her to attempt.
"Yeah, okay!" Sora makes a pleased humming sound from his place in the snow pile and Elsa smiles.
She wants to unfreeze Arendelle for Anna, to show her that she is different now. Maybe Elsa can't rejoin society as a whole, but if she gives Anna clothes to protect her they can spend time together again, without fear. They can rebuild the relationship Elsa tried so hard to freeze out.
That is, if Anna will forgive her.
Her heart clenches, a familiar, bitter dance of doubt settling in. Fantasies of her sister pulling away in disgust and horror are worn paths within her mind. After hurting her twice now, running away from their kingdom and damning it to an inclement winter— well, she deserves all of Anna's anger and distrust. As a queen and a sister, Elsa has let her down.
Her hands curl into a cradle on her lap. Despite what she deserves… maybe it's time Elsa showed some of the same determination. It might be her turn to wait outside of a door and beg to make a snowman. Anna waited for years and Else will, too. Her sister deserves an apology. And if there's still space in her heart, Elsa wants to try to rekindle the love that lived there.
Because now, she doesn't have to be afraid of herself for Anna's sake.
Donald and Goofy approach, seeming to finally buy that she and Sora have accepted their surrender (there were two fake-outs before, so their suspicion is valid). Donald heaves Sora's deadweight from the pit, only to be pulled in himself. Elsa gets a gracious hand from Goofy and wobbles to her feet. Muscles up and down her body whine in protest. Perhaps an intense snowball fight after battling Heartless all day was not the wisest course of action.
Even Sora admits it's time to turn in for the night. Elsa would rather charge on to Castletown if possible, but the sky is already darkening into an inky, overcast evening.
"Where will we sleep?" Elsa asks.
"We have tents to use, but what we need is a fire. Sora?" Donald says.
"On it!" Sora stands up and goes into the forest. Several minutes later, he returns with wood from the willow trees. Goofy, Donald, and Elsa have been setting up the tents and making a flat platform to sleep on.
Soon a merry fire is blazing between the tents and Sora is falling into a doze on the ice-bench Elsa made.
"He runs around like a maniac, but at the first opportunity he nods off," Donald grumbles.
"Anna's the same way," Elsa says, matching his quiet tone.
"He's such a sleepy head he slept for a whole year once," Goofy says. Donald chuckles at her wide-eyes.
"I hardly know whether to believe you after all of this," Elsa says with a wry expression.
Goofy loops an arm around Sora's shoulders and ushers him up. "Come on Sora, let's get into the tent." With help, Sora makes it inside.
Donald stands and takes his wand in hand. "Before we go to bed, I'll cast some wards around the area so we can rest safely."
Magic warding sound incredibly useful to Elsa. How large can the wards be? Are they impenetrable from the ground? Her mind is racing with technical questions about the how's and why's of magic. She wants to ask but knows there isn't time with Arendelle on the clock. Afterward… after Arendelle is safe and she talks to Anna she'll have a long sit down with Donald and satisfy her curiosity about magic and its users once and for all.
"I'll make some ice traps around the perimeter just to be sure," Elsa volunteers and she pretends not to notice how Donald bristles at the mention. She muffles a chuckle when she remembers Donald falling in three traps one after another like tic-tac-toe.
After finishing her net of traps and hiding them with a thin ice sheet, she heads back. Goofy is waiting up for her. She can hear loud, honking snores from the same tent Sora went and figures that's where Donald is too.
Goofy smiles from his place on the bench. She sits beside him and takes the warm tea. She ices it and drinks. Goofy fumbles around his pockets before pulling out a tiny satchel with a chef's hat embroidered across the seams. She watches, wide-eyes, as he pulls out a plate incongruous in size with the small satchel. More magic to ask about later.
"Here, I reckon you're hungry," Goofy says, undoing some catch to reveal a steaming plate of some sort of bird. It's still warm, also by magic, she assumes.
She is hungry. She didn't think about packing food when she left the castle a day ago. She ate a few elderberries with Sora and before that scrounged a few things to eat in the forest, but it's got nothing on the meal before her. She doesn't hesitate to start on the drumstick.
The quail dish is soon gobbled up with well-earned appetite. Elsa hesitates to say she's still hungry when this is their stock, but Goofy preempts her. "Have some more." He hands her a red soup this time.
She takes a gulp and then withdraws. "It's cold!" she says with a smile.
"It's chilled tomato soup. I thought you might like it."
Now that her hunger is less pressing, she can relish the rich flavor of the dish. "This is delicious," she says between sips.
"Sora made it under the careful tutelage of a master chef and friend," Goofy says.
"Please pass my compliments onto the chefs," she says. The dishes are more than comparable with the food in the castle. She's a little surprised that Sora has the patience for cooking, and the thought makes her smile. "Have you already eaten?" she asks.
Goofy shakes his head and rolls up the sleeve of his dark blue soldier's uniform. Elsa sees a white square on his upper arm.
"These patches give us nutrients and calories. All three of us have 'em. We don't always have time to eat with all the fighting we do."
Elsa looks down at her soup and tries to think even for a moment about what it must be like to fight that often. It's a terrible kind of reality, but one she sees borne quietly in Goofy's demeanor. His eyes, instead, are on the tent where Sora and Donald are sleeping. Yes, she can tell now that Sora is considerably younger than the other two. Still a teenager, closer to Anna's age. His life is so chaotic that even the small normalcy of meals has been stripped away from him.
Her emotions and powers flare but she channels it into her soup, letting it get frosty. Elsa wonders if this food is only for other people if Sora never tastes what he makes, but Goofy seems to trace her train of thoughts. "When we do have time, we turn them off and have a proper meal. It's even more special that way," Goofy says. "But usually it's when we can have a big show. Sora likes to do a four-course meal or nothing. It's really decadent." He chuckles.
Elsa looks at his worn but cheerful face and takes another sip of the soup, feeling her eyes sting a little. It's delicious, it's so good.
"After I unfreeze Arendelle, Anna and I will cook a big meal for all three of you, how does that sound?" she asks. There's a lot she's assuming with that sentence; that she can unfreeze Arendelle, that Anna forgives her, that she won't be chained for crimes against the kingdom—
But she wants this moment, for Anna, for them, for her.
Goofy meets the passion in her eyes and smiles wide. "Gawrsh, that sounds awful nice. Thank you, Elsa."
She finishes her soup and really thinks about every bite.
Afterward, she scrubs her teeth, uses the bathroom and lies in her tent, thinking about everything that happened to her today— hurting Anna, hurting Hans, the soldier's scared eyes… her magic clothes, Sora the sorceress, Donald's grandmagic, Goofy's gratitude, her power, their power. Resolve.
She sleeps.
.
.
.
.
.
THINGS FIXED
-There's a snowball fight.
-Elsa has time, space, and support to think about her power and self-actualize that it can be whatever she wants.
-She gets quality time with the crew.
We're in the home stretch y'all. Changes have been stacking up...
I would love to know what you think~ The finale will be here next week!