We'll protect her. She can learn to control it. I'm sure.

"I don't believe it."

Her father and mother watch wide-eyed, staring up into the glittering air of the ballroom as Elsa dances. She's free, she's content, she feels so light she could jump into the air and fly, except that was one of the first things she tried and even if she coats her arms in sheets of thin ice and jumps from the second-floor bannisters she's still too heavy.

"I knew she had powers but this…"

Her parents watch as their daughters play in the snow, a scene no different from the one a thousand families do every winter. But they're not outside in one of Arendelle's parks, they're inside the main ballroom of the castle, and the snow and ice that coats every surface of the large ballroom didn't come from the sky, it came from their own firstborn. It's like the north wind picked up the tonnes of snow that lay outside the castle gates and dumped them directly into the ballroom. Elsa and Anna are knee-deep in it, and the queen needed a warm coat to stay there.

Anna dances through the snow, smashing into animal-shaped snowbanks and giving adorable roars like a conquering lion. Elsa waves a hand like a sculptor shaping clay and more pop up, tiny animals that twist and move like they're alive.

"Maybe Elsa made the right decision," queen Idunn whispers to her husband, grasping his hand at his side. "Look how happy they are."

The king looks down as his daughters play in the magical wonderland and can't help but smile. One week ago – when it feels like he came so close to losing them both – feels like an eternity ago. He catches Elsa's eye and his oldest beams and waves up at him before suddenly she's covered in puffy white down, and Anna is laughing with another snowball already in her hand.

Elsa and Anna look up at their parents, teal and blue eyes shining up at them. "Daddy, mommy, come play!"

"Maybe you're right," the king whispers. He takes his wife's hand. "Shall we?"

Together they descend the staircase as the king takes the memories of that awful week and puts them out of his head. He has his health and his kingdom and his daughters, and as the latter dance around him throwing snowballs at each other, delirious with happiness, he needs nothing else.

Until then, we'll lock the gates…

"It's just for our own protection."

The king and Elsa watch as the main gate swings slowly shut, his arm on her shoulder. Elsa can see people walking through their everyday lives outside, barely giving them a glance. She's not old enough to understand the full ramifications of those huge oaken slabs latching during the day, but she's old enough to know that her father is holding onto her more closely than he normally does, and old enough to know that something is just a little bit wrong. In the courtyard the temperature drops ever so slightly, and the girl's breath mists in the air.

The king can feel it too. "Elsa, are you alright?"

"Are we shutting them forever?" Elsa asks with just a little tremor in her voice. She and Anna used to run through the markets past the moat and bridge, playing tag and hide-and-go-seek with the children of the market vendors. Sometimes they'd get gifts, apples or candied treats from the old red-faced men and women who manned them.

"May…only for a little while," the king lies, because he doesn't know. He does know that even though Arendelle isn't the most devout of kingdoms that the citizens still throw salt over their shoulders when they spill it at table, and every midwife has an iron horseshoe on the birthing bed to ward off changelings. The castle is his domain and he is the king, and so far all those who know his daughter as something more than human have been extremely loyal to him (knowing Elsa and Anna probably help with this; no-one could meet them and not love them), but he still tightens up in fear some days. He has nightmares about mobs and pitchforks, and stakes and fire. "Only for a little while."

"Elsa, daddy!"

Agdar watches as Elsa's eyes light up at the sound of her sister's voice. She turns and runs back, all thoughts of the closing doors forgotten, thank God.

"Look what I found!" Anna says as she runs toward them both. She looks like a little flower, all dressed in queen and her red hair bouncing wildly, the white streak running through it the only physical reminder now of the accident on the mountains that had almost claimed her life. Her hands are cupped in front of her, and the king sighs. Just one more piece to add to her collection of knick-knacks. When they had returned from the north mountain the king had momentarily entertained the idea that such a traumatic experience might temper his youngest, would bring her in line just a little bit. A forlorn hope.

"What is it what is it?" Elsa exclaims excitedly, not a princess now but just a young girl like any other.

Anna opens her hands and Elsa's eyes open wide as dinner plates. "Daddy come see!"

The king smiles and walks over, going down on one knee between his daughters. "What have you got…there." He trails off when he sees what Anna is holding. This time it isn't a huge shining conker, or a pretty flower or a smooth coloured rock. In her hands a small baby bird shakes gently and meeps weakly as it flaps around. It's fluffy and adorable and he can see why she wanted it but… "Anna where did you find this?" he asks, staring down at the chick as it flaps with an open beak.

"The oak!"

She must mean the oak by the pond. The oak that's at least a hundred feet tall if it's an inch. His stomach churns as he imagines her tiny hands trying to grasp at the huge branches. Not now. "Darling, you shouldn't have," he says, and doesn't mean it like she's just given him an over-expensive gift.

"What's wrong daddy?" Anna asks, hearing the tone of his voice and suddenly knowing that she's done something wrong.

As gently as he can the king takes the small dying bird into his own gloved hands. "Birds can't leave the nest when they're so young Anna. They…"

That's it.

"They need to stay with their parents until they're strong enough to live on their own," he says, trying to put meaning into every word. "They're too weak to survive so young."

Both his daughters are looking at him wide-eyed now. "Is the birdy going to be okay?" Anna asks, one foot twisting around in the cobblestoned floor.

Elsa will know if you lie. "I'm sorry darling."

Instantly Anna's eyes fill up with shining blue tears. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it!"

Like she's reading his mind Elsa gently takes the small, now-still chick from her father, and the king embraces his youngest in a huge, warm hug. "There, there, little one, you weren't to know."

"I…I can look after it until it's older!"

But it's already too late. Elsa joins her father and Anna's cries turn to low sniffles as her father and older sister surround her in love and warmth.

Elsa is the first to move away. She grabs Anna by the hand. "Let's bury it under the oak."

Anna wipes tears away from her eyes and nods, trying to be strong and brave like her older sister who she idolises. "Okay…"

The king watches as the two stride off, hand-in-hand, to the castle pond.

Maybe it will be a good lesson for them, he thinks, but another part of himself knows that his words weren't for them but for himself. Justification.

All birds leave the nest someday. You're a fool if you think you can protect them forever.

He knows his daughters, knows that one day they'll fly higher and brighter than he ever will. But for now they're his little chicks and he'll do anything to protect them, even if it means keeping them in a cage.

The fact that the cage is made of gold is little comfort.

We'll reduce the staff…

It had been building for months, and they had both agreed that it was better to lance a boil when it was small than to leave it and just hope that it didn't turn into something rotten. They had chosen their staff superbly, every single servant in Arendelle castle had undergone interviews and investigations when they had been hired before either child had been born, but some questions had simply never been accounted for, and how could they have been?

How would you react if, for example, the crown princess were to develop powers beyond those of mere mortals?

Well your majesty I…

Her husband had been insistent and Idunn had eventually acquiesced. She knew she was perhaps a little more soft-hearted than other royalty she had entertained in the castle; dukes and barons and counts who treated their staff like tools to be used and discarded. But even so she was under no illusions that the staff were family, or close confidants, or anything other than well-paid servants. If the choice was between the safety and happiness of their children and the livelihood of the chamber-maids and men-at-arms then there was simply no contest.

The head butler Kai and the chief maid Gerda had listened quietly to their majesties, then bowed and curtsied and left the private study, and the machinery and hierarchy that operated 'downstairs' to keep the castle in running order had started to move. The treasury doors had been levered open bare inches (not even that much, Arendelle was a rich country) to ensure that the departing servants would neither starve nor talk, letters of recommendation had been written, and within days the matter had been settled. To the king and queen this had been more than enough. All those who remained in Arendelle castle now had loyalty beyond question, and if this meant that some rooms of their home had needed to have dust-covers thrown over them, or that some wings remained unlit at night, this was a small sacrifice to pay. In the way of those that deal with the big problems though, they had forgotten the smaller ones.

Idunn watched from the window as Ida departed through the river-door. Not even for this would they use the huge main gates that led to the bridge. Both of them had agreed they would only re-open when the problem-

She is your daughter.

-when Elsa had gained full mastery of her abilities. The current situation was not helping this, however. Was not helping either of them.

"But why does Ida have to leave?" Anna wailed into her mother's skirts.

Because Ida has been hanging a crucifix on her door to ward off evil, and because she won't clean in Elsa rooms even when Gerda orders her to, Idunn didn't say. "Because her family are sick, and she needs to go and be with them," she tried instead, hoping Anna won't notice that an awful lot of the castle servants seemed to suddenly have sick families that required their attention.

"I don't want her to go, make her come back!" Anna almost shouts.

"Anna!"

The anger is gone almost as fast as it had appeared. "Sorry."

The queens kept looking at Anna's eyes though, and could still see that tiny sliver of resentment buried there underneath the sadness at her favourite maid leaving. She's learned to recognise it now, had seen it a few times when Anna had been upset. She was still a very young girl and as vulnerable to temper tantrums and crying fits as any other girl her age but ever since…

Ever since that horrible night.

Ever since that night on the mountain the little spark had seemed to lodge there just a little deeper, and show no signs of stopping even as her little girl grew up. Whether it was anger at whatever was making her upset or anger at herself (after the incident with the baby bird Anna hadn't spoken for hours until the queen had finally coaxed it out of her with the promise of chocolate and heard I'm a stupid girl) it was there.

Idunn swept her youngest into her arms. "Don't worry sweet, they'll be back some day." She meant it too, she had ordered Kai to keep records. She heard the creak of the door opening to reveal Kai and Gerda standing in the corridor outside. She pushed Anna away until mother and daughter were looking each other in the eye. "Remember love, no matter who comes or goes here, your father and I will always love you."

"And Elsa too," Anna said, and it wasn't a question. She knew other families had had trouble with bickering siblings but no such thing had happened in Arendelle. If there was one single good thing that had come from the Incident, it was that the strong bond between Anna and Elsa had become unbreakable iron. The queen's heart could have burst from love of her two daughters.

"And Elsa too. Now run along, it's time for you to go and learn." Like a candle being blown out, gooey adorable Anna was replaced by puffy-cheeked obstinate Anna. Idunn held a finger to her lips before she could even say a word. "Ah ah, you must learn."

Even through the little red spark Anna knew this was a battle she wasn't going to win. She turned and stomped off from the room, where Gerda was waiting with a smile and a hand to lead Anna to her first tutors. Her daughter turned and waved as she walked off, and the queen gave a small smile back.

"Your majesty," Kai said, and waited. Kai (no last name known or asked for) was a blessing. If royalty were the rocks that supported a kingdom, the head butler was the one who made sure that those rocks remained firm and strong.

"Kai. Is everything dealt with?"

"Just so your majesty," the man replied smoothly, holding a small sheet of paper in his hands. "All those who remain within the castle are beyond question."

"Was there any trouble?" the queen asked. She kept thinking about gossiping servant girls walking through the market, talking where they shouldn't. Rumour was a powerful force in any kingdom.

"Minor quibbles, ma'am. An errant chamber-maid who disagreed with the terms of her severance, and one of the men-at-arms who enjoyed his authority perhaps a little much."

"Have you…"

"The money for the girl was insignificant in the scheme of things, and the guard was permitted to keep his horse and sword. All matters are dealt with, your majesty."

She didn't like trouble. A few small pittances she'd gladly pay to keep the fuss down to a minimum. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Good…good."

"Your majesty?"

"Yes, Kai?"

"If I may exceed my position some small amount?"

Queen Idunn blinked in surprise. Decades of loyal service, both to her and her parents before her, and Kai had never been anything other than the perfect servant, unquestioning. Even when he had been younger, when Idunn herself was a girl and still courting the king, Kai had seemed imposing. Like a rock. "You have permission," she said, and waited.

"Many of the staff who remain are childless your majesty," Kai said, back still as straight as a ramrod but some touch of…softness…in his voice? Impossible. Not from Kai. "Many of them are loyal to you precisely because of this. Whether due to being unable to or for other reasons, little Elsa and Anna are their children. Not a soul remains in this castle that would not lay down their lives for you and yours were they asked, and not because they are being paid."

The queen remembered; Kai was unmarried, or at least married to his job. She felt the urge to ask why but felt in her heart that to do so would be to open up some small gulf between them, and all her life Kai had been there.

"Thank you Kai," she settled for. It wasn't enough, but…

"I will check on the tutors, to make sure Anna arrived at his classroom." Something he had had to do more than once now.

The head butler left, vanishing into the castle as silent as a ghost.

We will limit her contact with people and keep her powers hidden from everyone...

"But whyyyyyyy?"

"Because…because not everyone thinks the same way your mother and I do."

Somehow it was quickly turning into was the hardest conversation the king had ever had.

Elsa stood there in the courtyard pouting. Both his daughters in fact. Between their expressions, and snow behind them, and the misshapen raggedy snowman between them, the king couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous.

I have sparred with kings and barons, watched empires begin to fragment and others rise up, and helped start my kingdom down the path of an industrial revolution. Yet I am unable to convince my small daughter why she cannot make blizzards in summer just to 'cool down a little'.

Truly a more monstrous task than the others put together, the queen had laughed and replied.

"Who cares what they think?" Elsa muttered.

"Yeah!" Anna agreed with her older sister, punching the air but instead missing and hitting the snowman beside her, whose head fell off. "Sorry Olaf!"

"Elsa please listen to me."

But he couldn't manage it. He simply couldn't, there was no magic word, and no argument besides one he could think of to make her listen to him and understand why he was worried. That one argument was one he was unwilling to use. Elsa simply was not afraid of her own power, and didn't see why anyone else should be either.

Thank God he had closed the gates.

"Maybe if we built them all snowmen?" Anna suggested. "Everyone loves snowmen!" She grabbed 'Olaf's' twig-hands and spun it around, whereupon it promptly fell to pieces that flew into the walls. "Oops."

The king heard a giggle from above him and shot a look at the queen. My dear you are not helping. "People are afraid of…of new things Elsa," he said, running a hand down her cheek. She was cool to the touch. And you are so very new. "And when they are afraid some people attack what they fear."

"Noooo!"

"Yes," the king said. "So if-"

Anna jumped between the king and Elsa and crossed her arms. "I'll potect her!"

"Protect," Elsa hissed, ever the older daughter.

"Protect her!" Anna repeated, and crossed her arms in front of her.

The king looked at them both and smiled. "We have men-at-arms and knights who do that for us love."

"Then I'll be a knight," Anna said, unwilling to admit defeat. "I'll be the bestest, bravest, strongest, bestest-er knight in Arendelle!"

"You said 'bestest' twice, nearly," king Agdar teased her, flicking her nose with a finger.

"Because I really mean it," Anna replied, and stuck out her tongue.

"See!" Elsa said, as if that finished the argument.

The king sighed. He wanted to agree. He wanted to throw open the castle gates again and let his daughters run free in the markets like they had used to. Wanted to call back the old staff and fill the castle with light and air again. But he couldn't risk it. Not when all around him was snow and ice. The years before the Incident and the scant month after had taught him two things; that his daughter's power was truly beautiful, and that it was a terrible beauty. Especially in Arendelle. In the spring the sun melted snow and destabilised the ice that had gathered all winter, causing avalanches that could remove whole forests and logging camps. In winter the winds coming through the valley and past the mountain caused chills that could drop the temperature in seconds low enough to cause frostbite.

And the stories…Arendelle was a Christian nation, but old ways die hard, or turn from religion into myth and then into fable. Old women still read the tales of the Edda from memory to their children at night to scare them into obedience. The king still remembered his own nurse who had told him stories about the kobolds and dwarves, and the trickster god Loki, or when he had done something particularly bad the stories of how the world would end; in ice.

He wouldn't risk it.

"Elsa."

"I…yes father?" she asked, argument cut off by the expression on his face.

"You are forbidden to show your magic to anyone outside of this castle. Do you understand me?"

It took minutes, and tears, and a few more harsh words than he would have liked, but eventually…

"I promise father."

The king ruffled his daughter's hair. "You'll understand when you're older," he said like every father for generations had said to their children. Unlike those fathers however, in this he was mistaken.

Elsa understood now.

She just wasn't happy about it.

"Elsaaaaaa?"

"Go away Anna."

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"No."

For a minute Elsa thought that it had worked as her little sister stayed quiet, then…

"AAAAAH!"

Elsa cried out as Anna reached into the bed and grabbed her arm and pulled and Elsa had no choice but to follow it and was pulled out of the bed and off its edge. Luckily something soft was underneath her to break her fall.

"Owwww…"

"Sorry, sorry!" Elsa said as she climbed off of Anna and the two disentangled themselves.

"'M okay." Anna shook her head and grabbed Elsa's hand. "C'mon!"

"Anna I'm not supposed to…" Elsa started weakly, but she didn't resist very hard as Anna led her not towards the grand ballroom where they had always played, but elsewhere, into the dark parts of the castle that had been extinguished and shut down when the servants had left.

"Shhhh!" Anna whispered over-dramatically, looking out from the corner left and right like one of the thief-heroes in their storybooks.

"Anna we're not allowed!" Elsa hissed.

Anna ignored her, still gripping onto her hand. It felt as hot as fire.

Anna pushed open the door. "Here!"

Elsa knew it immediately, even in the dark of midnight and with the lamps off. She gasped and ran to the centre of the long corridor. The moon was dark but if she squinted out of the huge glass windows she could just barely see the huge craggy outline of the mountain, as the two sisters looked out of the north corridor.

"Now we can play in all the snow we want!"

"Daddy really says we're not supposed to…" Elsa said, caught halfway between wanting to play with her little sister so very badly, and wanting to obey her father who she loved more than anyone in the world. She sighed and waved a hand, and felt the power flow through her and out of her, and the north corridor was a whirling blizzard

Anna stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at her. "Daddy's silly and wrong. If anyone tries to stop you making magic I'll…I'll stop them back!" Tongue still stuck out in fierce concentration, Anna reached into her dress and brought out…

Elsa gasped and ran towards her sister, arms out. "Anna be careful!"

The tiny redhead waved the butter-knife around as she climbed on top of a snowy hillock. "I'm Anna of Arendelle, the greatest knight ever!" She immediately sank to her waist in it, a tiny little chest and arms poking out of a snowy skirt. "When I'm older," she conceded.

Elsa laughed, and inspiration struck. "Oh no, help me!" She waved and snowmen appeared around her, two, four, a half-dozen, all with comical horns and sharp arms.

"I'll save you princess!" Anna shouted, and leapt at them, tiny knife held out. The second the metal touched the cold snow Elsa laughed and the snowman burst into a million snowflakes that whirled around the pair.

"My hero!" Elsa swooned, falling backwards into the remains of the 'defeated' snowmen beneath her.

Anna laughed and jumped into the same mess and suddenly the room was all whirling, beautiful snowflakes and tangled princesses. All thoughts about what their father had said that afternoon were banished from Elsa's head as she played with her little sister – and newly self-proclaimed protector – in her own little world, nothing to disturb them, and the mountain watching over them.

The king sighed in the huge double-bed he shared with his wife, the warmth of her back pressing against him. The bed was an old heirloom and half-useless, because by the time they were half-asleep they were already curled around each other. "Do you think they're play-"

"Almost certainly," Idunn replied before he could even finish speaking.

"I'm just so worried about them both," Agdar said, free to voice his fears where no servants would dare linger to overhear. "I wish I could make them understand."

The queen twisted until they were facing each other. "They can understand when they're older. For now let them have each other. They have so little else." She put a finger against her husband's lips to stop him arguing. "This castle is their world now. The least we can do is make it a happy one."

"I keep having the same nightmare."

"You think I don't?" the queen asked. Pitchforks and pyres. Stakes and torches. "They're strong girls, love."

"Anna certainly is. She said she wanted to be a knight today."

The queen giggled, a musical note in the air that made the king happy every time he heard it. "A shining knight with a horse and a sword, just like in the storybooks."

"I swear she gets the wrong idea from those books," Agdar grumbled.

"Can you really imagine little Anna as a doting princess?" Idunn teased her husband.

The king sighed. "I really can't, not either of them." He smiled. "Maybe you should teach them to be."

"I was never doting."

"And I was never a knight."

"You were a knight to me," the queen whispered, running a hand down her husband's face.

"All I ever fought were the treasury's figures and that damnnable Weselton man."

"Quite the struggle that must have been."

"If financial book-keeping and diplomats are all our daughters ever have to fight, I'll be a happy man."

"Our wonderful daughters," the queen whispered, and seconds later was asleep, safe and secure with her husband while in the northern corridor their daughters danced and laughed, not a care in the world for anything but each other.