Early this week. Chapter notes at cobraygordon dot tumblr dot com.

An older sibling's life is comprised of two sentences.

Do you know where your sister is?

Can you talk to your sister for us?

"Y'majesty, have you seen the princess Anna?"

Elsa looked up from her book to see the large, round and red face of the woman, a picture made no prettier by the fact that she was huffing for air like a steam engine. "What's wrong Ola?"

The cook's assistant took a deep breath and steadied herself on the armchair Elsa was resting on, leaving a floury handprint behind. "Someone's been sneaking into the kitchens again, and this time it isn't just pies and cakes missing y'majesty."

"What else?"

The exhausted cook told her. If she was alone Elsa would have groaned, but that wasn't the kind of noise young princesses made in front of the servants. And I just spent twenty minutes getting comfortable. The castle library was ancient, every king and queen that had held dominion over Arendelle adding to it haphazardly as they were born, raised and died. Every one of them had had their favourite almanacs, books of genealogy, bibles (there was a whole shelve dedicated to bibles so ancient they looked as if the passage of time had melded them into a single seven foot-long tome) and novels, and none of them had ever thrown anything out! Unwanted gifts and outdated stories were there. Paper of all kinds had simply been thrown into the gaping maw of the library and forgotten about. Where the floor wasn't covered in creaking oaken bookshelves it was dotted in old furniture; ancient dusty armchairs and seating that could have been brought to the country two hundred years ago, red and green upholstery softened and imprinted by generations of occupants. You could sit down and sink inches into them, surrounded by warm musty leather.

To twelve year-old Elsa it was a small quiet slice of heaven, away from the tutors and servants that had over the years somehow taken up more and more of her day. It had started gradually, so gradually in fact she'd barely noticed it when nannies had started asking her questions and expecting answers. After that classrooms had replaced playrooms, and servants had morphed slowly but sternly into governesses. At first she had been more than a little annoyed, but her father had put his foot down instantly and with a tone she almost never heard from him.

Elsa, your education is vital. You will rule one day, god willing, and when you do you need to be prepared. Other royal children your age have already begun their education, we can't waste any more time. This is what you should come to expect until you come of age. King Agdar didn't mention the fact that procuring governesses for Elsa had been just a little more expensive and a little more time-consuming than he remembered his own being. They couldn't very well expect cooks and maids to be responsible for their princesses' education. The eventual hires had records so spotless they could be used as bed-sheets, and utter reliability.

Elsa knew her father was right ('daddy' had left her vocabulary soon after that little talk), and she'd felt more than a little sick at the thoughts he'd put in her head. Children her age were already smarter than she was? She felt like she'd let him down. Let the kingdom down. When she had thoughts like that she'd feel the bottom drop out of her stomach and the air around her become spikey and cold and she needed to go and stand by a fire while she worked the bad thoughts out of her head. She knew she had responsibilities she had to live up to and sometimes it was almost like she could feel them above her, crushing her from the head down. When it got bad she found the biggest, hottest fireplace and sat there as the floors iced up around her, spiderwebs of frost radiating out from her, fragile just like she felt. When it got bad she would stay there for hours, afraid to move as if breaking the beautiful, tiny network of ice around her would break something in her heart as well.

Still though, she would never think that time spent with her little sister was 'wasted'. Not even a little bit.

When it got really bad, Anna was the one she would turn to.

She knew where to start.

Even kicking her blue dress out of the way with every step Elsa knew she'd have to change when she entered the castle again. The servants worked hard but the stables were just too huge to be cleaned by the few staff they had left, and so only a few pathways and open areas were kept spotless. The rest of it was given a daily sweep and called good. Elsa hated going back there, but...ah, there. She saw her target, a giant bale of straw that was undulating softly in the mid-day sun, and not because of any breeze. She stopped in front of it and crossed her arms.

"Kristoff!"

The straw paused for a second, then started unfolding, and as Elsa watched the giant golden bale turned slowly and painfully into a brown and red lump topped with straw-coloured hair, that stared down at her with bleary amber eyes.

Kristoff stared silently for a second as his brain tried to process the blue-ish blobs in front of him. Finally two of those blobs turned from vague clouds into electric-blue eyeballs, and he shot to as much attention as a boy can when he's still half-asleep. "Your majesty? What are you doing down at the stables? Not that you can't come down to the stables anytime you want I mean they're yourstablesandmaybeI'lljuststop…talking. Now." He coughed.

Elsa resisted the urge to sigh. "Kristoff, have you…" No, try again. "Kristoff, where's Anna?"

"Where's Ann- her majesty? Your majesty? I'm sure I don't…" he trailed off into excuses.

Elsa liked Kristoff, but would never admit it to the boy's face. When Elsa was ten he had simply appeared one day at the stables saddling a horse for Elsa's riding lessons, and that had been it, really. Except it hadn't been it, because every single time Elsa had been down into the stables or the courtyard the boy with the straw head had been there too, shovelling hay, or replacing a cracked horseshoe, or sweeping the flagstones, or any of the other thousand jobs a stable-full of animals needed doing to not turn into a pit of disease and stench. Eventually she'd learned, and more than once she'd whipped her head around fast enough to catch him staring, at which point, every time, he'd glance away with a beet-red face of the truly caught-in-the-act.

"Kristoff liiiiiiikes you," Anna had teased when she had told her younger sister, laid on her back on an Elsa-made snowdrift, head dangled down and making rude faces at her older sister.

"No he doesn't! He looks dumb and he smells of horse all the time! And anyway he isn't a prince."

Anna had no argument for that, sitting on her little Elsadrift. Both of them had very strong opinions on princes, and Kristoff definitely wasn't one of them. "He still likes you though. Horse prince!"

Anna!

"You can be his horse princess! And you can ride horses all day and gloofmps." A faceful of snowball stopped whatever Anna was going to say next, and in seconds both sisters were reduced to incomprehensible giggling as they chased each other through the snow-covered dancehall.

It had been only a few days after when Elsa had been putting on her riding gloves, when Anna had grabbed her from behind."Come with me."

Elsa had let herself be led around the stone walls. "Anna where are we going? I have to get to the les-" Then Anna had dragged her around the corner and to the person waiting there, and ten year-old Elsa had shrieked.

Almost as loud as Kristoff had in fact. Elsa hadn't known boys could shriek. The next ten minutes had wavered between confusing, aggravating and terrifying.

"Just tell Elsa you like her!" Anna had demanded.

The boy looked between the two of them like a deer being chased by wolves on both sides. "I don't like her!"

"Why not?" little Anna had asked, glaring at the ten year-old boy. Glaring up. Even at that age Kristoff was already taller than Anna and Elsa both.

"I don't mean I don't like her! Like you!"

"Then you do like her! Confess!" Anna shouted, kicking him in the shins.

"Owwww!"

The miniature child-interrogation had gone on her several more minutes, and probably could have lasted even longer if Kristoff's natural honesty hadn't finally gotten sick of and overruled his embarrassment.

"I like your ice!"

The interrogation after that had been Anna alone, towering over and shouting at and subjugating the older, stronger and taller boy completely, until they had the truth out of him and Kristoff was scared to death of the redhead's wrath.

"It's pretty. That's all. I just…" Kristoff had looked down into her eyes. "I saw you in the mountain, on the snow. You were pretty."

And just like that Elsa's dislike (or at least distaste) of Kristoff had melted away like…well…like the snow in summer. They hadn't become friends exactly; she was still the crown princess and he was a stableboy and dogsbody for the castle, but they'd become something a little closer than just master and servant. Because for all that the remaining castle staff were loyal beyond any reasonable doubt and incredibly kind in their interactions with the royal princess, they still treated her power the way her father had when he had first discovered it; a curse. Kristoff didn't. Kristoff thought her magic was beautiful, and that thought alone brought her more comfort than the pitying glances and kind words from her maids that one day it will be all sorted out. Elsa would smile and nod and make sure her clenched hands were out of sight, frustration building inside her until she felt like screaming. Kristoff was who she needed when Anna alone wasn't enough to remind her that her power was hers, not some cruel fate by God. He was her occasional confidant and safety-valve.

To Anna he had become a partner-in-crime.

"Anna took something from the kitchens and I need to find her before...ah-ha!" She pointed a victorious finger at the increasingly red-faced boy. Kristoff was a terrible liar, "You do know where she is."

He sighed. "She made me promise not to tell you."

That was new. Usually Anna practically demanded Elsa take part in her games. "Where is she?"

"Anna!" Elsa hissed in the way of all children who are trying to shout and whisper at the same time. She needn't have bothered, she wasn't going to be overhead with the noise around her.

In the courtyard below Arendelle's soldiers trained, all flashing steel and blue uniforms. A co-ordinated mess colour that twisted and moved as they drilled swordplay, riding and archery, the red sashes of the drill instructors breaking up the navy sea as they shouted at those unlucky enough to have caught their eye. Arendelle hadn't fought a ground war for…we…since ever, being locked by mountains on one side and the ocean to the other. They still practised though, and every ship in their superbly-trained navy had their soldiers. Seeing them in books had been so romantic; brave and dashing soldiers swinging on ropes over to the enemy pirate ships. To Elsa's young eyes though the scene below would have been just an incomprehensible mess. If she had been looking.

"ANNA!"

Anna sat on the edge of the slate roof, staring down at the noisy soldiers, enchanted. Elsa could even see how she had gotten there; she had got into one of the closed-off wings on the fourth story of the castle looking down onto the courtyard, then had used the stone buttresses and merlons as hand-holds to climb down until she was looking over the courtyard. Arendelle castle hadn't needed to worry about invasion for generations; successive kings and queens had re-modelled and torn down the thing on a whim, removing much of the defensive stonework a castle their size should have had. Some areas still had them though, and the area overlooking the drill yard was one of them.

Anna hadn't heard her. Elsa couldn't see her face from the window but she would be able to tell what expression it would have. She sighed and leaned over just a little bit. The drop from the window to the slate roofing wasn't much, she told herself. Just a few feet.

But the drop from the roof to the ground isn't.

Don't be afraid. You can make a snowdrift at the bottom. You can't be hurt.

But what if I…

Elsa stood at the window for a minute that felt like an eternity. But eventually worry about her sister, a flash of green dress and red hair that was only a few metres away, overruled her fear. She took a deep breath, and swung her leg out over the window.

"Els- Your majest- Elsa!" Kristoff spluttered, grabbing her arm. He gasped and pulled it away fast. He hissed at his hand, suddenly so cold it burned.

Kristoff was nice but he wasn't her sister. Elsa's power withdrew from him and free of his grasp she slipped her other foot over the window, and dropped down to the ledge below. Instantly the wild started howling and tugging at her, and she practically fell forward to claw her hands around a decorative stone angel. For a second she hung there dragging in cold air, exulting in her own courage.

I did it!

Anna was closer now and that was what mattered. "ANNA!" Still no response. It hadn't seemed this windy from back inside the windowsill.

She took another step and shrieked as she lost her footing on the smooth slate tiles. For a moment her entire world was the sloping roof and the long drop beyond it.

You can do it Elsa you're a big girl now you CAN DO IT.

You promised daddy you wouldn't.

But Anna was there, and she needed to get to Anna, and in the face of those two facts her promise to her father never to reveal her power was very distant. Ice flew out from her hands, whirling around her and past Anna and suddenly where there had only been blue skies and empty air beyond the roof there was a tiny, Elsa-sized snowbank pushed up against the stone merlon she was slipping towards. She closed her eyes and the world went white and soft.

"ELSA!" Anna looked around as a sudden chill enveloped the rooftop, just in time to see Elsa cannonball into the snow-covered stone plank next to her. She shrieked in panic and jumped over the roof as if the forces of gravity didn't apply to her, and started shovelling giant handfuls of snow away. "Are you okay!"

Giant teal eyes were framed against the sky as Anna looked down at Elsa. She tries to lever herself up and winces as she feels something ache in her hands where she braced herself against the impact. "Ooowww..."

"Are you okay!?" As if Anna herself hadn't just twisted her ankle jumping across the roof. But Elsa was hurt and that was all that mattered.

"I'm fine." She didn't feel fine. In fact she felt rotten, but Anna was staring down at her with teary eyes and she hated that. Carefully trying to avoid putting weight on her palms she sat up until she had her back against the snowdrift and stone pedestal. "Anna what are you doing up here?"

Her little sister was suddenly looking at every place but at her, and that was when she knew Anna had really been doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. On top of skipping her lessons, stealing from the kitchens, and conspiracy to misbehave. "I was just watching. Y'know. The guards."

Elsa tried her best mommy voice. "Anna..."

Anna blushed and looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry okay! I just wanted to watch…"

"Do you know how much trouble you'll be in for coming up here?" The drop was out of sight but not out of mind. Four stories down onto a stone courtyard and Elsa couldn't but help but think what if. She had barely managed to stop herself from smacking into a stone wall a few feet from the window, what chance would she have had if Anna fell from… "And you could have gotten Kristoff in trouble too!" She pointed back up at the window where the boy was staring back at them, glancing back along the corridor now and then. Elsa remembered why she had come looking for Anna in the first place. "And what you took from the kitchens too! Where is it Anna?"

During the little tantrum Anna's expression had started to shift from sad and apologetic to childish and surly. She reached behind her back and when Elsa saw what her little sis had taken she gasped. "Anna that's dangerous!"

It was one of the biggest ice-knives Elsa had seen, probably one of the biggest in the kitchens. She'd been it before being used by the assistant cook; a huge man with arms as thick as her waist. In her little sister's hands it looked more like a sword than a knife, and that's…

That's why she took it, she realised, and sighed. She reached across and enveloped her sister in a big gooey hug, feeling the heat of her sister's cheek against her own. Ever since she could remember Anna had always been like that when they touched, and now that her little sister was afraid and embarrassed and sorry she was white-hot.

"I just…I just wanted to try and practise a little!" Anna eventually managed to get out between blubbering sobs as Elsa ever-so-carefully levered the long sharp blade away from her little sister. Practically the minute that Anna had been old enough to read Elsa had dragged her away to the huge and dusty old library she spent so much time in. She had pictured herself sitting there in the giant comfy chairs by a roaring fireplace, Anna sat next to her as they read the stories Elsa had loved growing up. It had almost come true. Anna was interested in the same stories that Elsa was, but not the same characters. Elsa had loved kings and queens in those stories; good people who treated their citizens well and were loved by all. She didn't love them but she liked reading about the evil kings and queens too; powerful sorcerers that held thrall over their subjects and were feared by all.

Anna didn't. She paid barely any attention to them. She liked the heroes. She liked the adventures of the charming rogues and tricksters who passed by and were hired to slay the dragons and demons in the kingdom. When Elsa would want to read the story of Katie Woodencloak, Anna would sigh and fidget until it was her turn and she would have Elsa read another tale of Askeladde. When they were older and Anna could read on her own she had graduated from the funny clowns to the knights, and her play had turned from pranks and jokes to play swordfights and wizard duels that she would rope Elsa into as the captured princess or king that she would defend from the cruel monsters of the tired but indulgent servants. For Christmas one of the castle's carpenters had made Anna a little wooden sword, all rounded edges and blunt ends but a sword nonetheless. It had been Anna's favourite toy for all of half a year until she broke it, at which point the king and queen had found out, and the poor man had been forbidden from making her another. The argument had been lengthy, as the king had bumped up into the stubborn literalness of a young girl being told not to do something she really, really wanted to do.

My love, young princesses are meant to grow up into beautiful and gracious queens.

But Elsa is already so pretty, and she's going to be the queen. So why can't I be a knight?

Because…because young girls aren't meant to play with dangerous things like that.

Why are they dangerous for boys and not for girls?

Boys are big and strong.

Kristoff isn't!

But he will be when he grows up.

Well Kristoff isn't going to be a knight, he likes the stables and horses and his stinky pet. If Kristoff isn't going to be a knight can I take his place at…ummm… knight school?

And around and around, until father had been ready to burst with frustration and the queen ready to burst with laughter. Eventually they had extracted a promise that Anna wouldn't try and 'practise at being a knight' with dangerous things, on the condition that, if she was really good and paid attention to all her tutors, they would teach her archery when she was older. Archery still involved too many sharp objects for the king's taste, but it was known that ladies of the court practised it in the western courts as part of an upper-class education.

"You promised daddy." Between the two of them the king and queen were still mommy and daddy, not mother and father. "Come on." She held a hand out to her little sister. "We should go before we get in trouble."

"My lady that time has come and gone."

Elsa and Anna looked back up at the window to where Kristoff was standing, that special look in his eyes he used when he knew that to say anything at all would be to invite disaster. And good heavens wasn't this exactly that situation.

Kai stood behind him, one hand on the poor boy's shoulder, glaring down at the two of them.

"Ummm, we were looking at birds for our lessons and we spotted one on the roof but it was stuck and needed help and wethoughtwe'dcomeoutandtryand…help…it?"

"Lady Anna while you have many skills, lying is not one of them." Kai stepped aside and a soldier clambered out of the window, striding across the roof like a mountain-man.

"I…

Kai was already miles ahead of her. "Lady Elsa, please do not get yourself into any more trouble by trying to cover up for your sister."

Without asking permission the huge soldier (if Anna wants to do this for the rest of her life she's nuts!) picked the siblings up and hauled them step by step back to the window, where they were dumped on the ground.

"Boy, run along to the duty captain and let him know the princesses have been found. Then report to the stables, to shovel the muck."

"Then what should I do sir?"

"Oh I imagine you'll be shovelling muck for quite a while. Off you go boy."

"Coward!" Anna shouted as Kristoff ran from the scene of the crime.

Kai looked down, aghast. "That is quite enough of that young lady! Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

"I was fine. I had Elsa."

Just hearing her say those words brought a warmth into Elsa's heart. But Kai wasn't convinced. "And if Elsa hadn't found you? What would have happened then?" Anna had the good grace to stay quiet. "As I thought. Come along. Your father will hear about this."

Anna looked at Elsa behind Kai's back and mouthed; Sword?

Elsa just smiled, and after a second Anna was smiling too. The huge guard closed the window behind them, throwing the latch on the sun outside the strange out-of-season snowdrift that had come down on the rooftops. And the ice-knife Elsa had quickly hidden inside it.

"…have any idea how worried we were when they told us? Climbing on the castle roof? What if you hadn't been seen, what if you'd fallen!"

"I'm sorry daddy."

"And you! What if someone had seen you! Your…your power isn't a toy to be played with!"

"I'm sorry, father."

The fact that the anger was coming from a place of worry didn't make the words hurt any less. At least he didn't call it a curse this time. Elsa and Anna sat on their knees at the foot of the table, eyes locked to the floor as the king scolded them. Kai had brought both princesses into the long hall and the council meeting had been cut short there and then. Elsa knew all of the councillors that advised her father and almost all of them had shot her a pitying glance as they left.

"…taught you more sense than this, both of you!" The king took a deep breath. "You're princesses of this nation, you can't act like street urchins clambering over everything you see! Look at me, both of you." They did so. "This behavior shows me I have been more relaxed than I should about the both of you. Anna, you will not be learning archery this year."

"No!" Anna tried to sound as disappointed as she could but secretly she was relieved. She knew that it would have been far, far worse if daddy knew she had taken the swor- the knife from the kitchen.

The younger dealt with, the king turned to the elder. "Elsa. You broke your promise to me."

"I did it to-"

But the king cut her off. "Regardless of why you did it a promise was still broken. You'll be making more promises in the future long after your mother and I are both gone. Promises that will keep Arendelle safe and prosperous, and if those promises are broken it will mean more than disappointing someone. I have kept quiet until now, assuming that you would grow out of it, but I see this isn't happening. I have allowed this for too long."

What is he…?

The king took a deep breath. "You and Anna may no longer play with your powers in the northern corridor at night. At night I expect you both to be in your rooms and asleep, or I promise you I will build a wall between the two of your wings until you learn how to-"

Elsa gasped and felt something cold and sharp and bad slice through her body at the words. No more midnight snowmen. No more sledding down the staircases. No more drawing snowflakes on the windows at night. "Father!"

If the reaction from Elsa had been personal and cold though, the reaction from Anna was the exact opposite.

"NO! NO NO NO!"

Elsa stood there open-mouthed at the look on Anna's face as it turned from resignation at her own punishment into something betweenincredible sadness and absolute fury.

Their mother was just as shocked. "Anna! Listen to your father!"

Anna stood and for a half-second Elsa could have swore if her lil' sis had still had that ice-knife she would have waved it. Instead Anna ran to Elsa and crashed into her hard enough to hurt, wrapping her arms around her like a vice. She was so hot she almost burned. Elsa put her own hands around her sister and could feel Anna's heartbeat, hammering away like a blacksmith.

"NO! I won't let you take her!" Anna shouted through tears.

Elsa was watching her sister in panic and didn't see the expressions her father went through. Agdar went from anger at being disobeyed, to disbelief at how strongly his little girl felt, and finally something alike to resignation. Anna will never love me like she loves Elsa. He looked over at his wife, who shook her head gently, then back at his daughters.

One of King Agdar's fondest memories of his father was travelling to their neighbour and ally Sweden on a small trade mission. The United States of America, the newest addition to the New World, was having trouble in its relations with an Orient who was not being shown the respect it believed was due. His father had decided that there was opportunity to extent if not a helping hand then at least a friendly ear to the merchants of the Silk Road. Agdar remembered meeting an old man, almost bent double with age and wrinkled enough for five other men, who had shown him an old symbol of the orient. It had been a beautiful piece of art; a circle of pure ivory and obsidian shaped into two teardrops that swirled around each other, each with a single drop of the other inside themselves. The old man had told him it was something from a religion even older than Christianity or his own ancestors, that it meant…He had been too young to fully grasp the explanation but looking down now at his daughters he thought he understood it better now.

They looked up at him, a fiery little girl dressed in warm green and crimson, anger and sadness surrounding a heart wrapped in the ice of the sister that loved her. The older sister all cool blues and pale whites. Calmer and more collected certainly, but he can look and see how her breath was fogging in the colder air that swirled around her, just a little angry at the thought of being separated from her sister. Both of them had their hands entwined around the other.

They are stronger together.

"Very well, not this time" the king said as the voice of the old man retreated into the past. "But I mean it, both of you. The next time something of this magnitude happens, you will both spend some time being an only child."

Elsa looked out of the window with a sigh, the books she should have been studying forgotten. Elsa liked geometry, would usually have been enthralled to it, designing castles in her own head and imagining them on the landscapes outside, but tonight she just couldn't work up the energy.

Usually she wouldn't be in her room. She'd have 'snuck out' (all this time! All this time they'd known!) to join Anna and the two of them would have played in the corridor until exhaustion and fun had reduced them to laying on the soft snow side by side laughing. It had been one night and already she missed it.

And she couldn't use her powers. She loved her father but she hated him. There was a faint cracking noise and in front of her the window fogged up, snowflake symbols appearing on it. If anyone outside had been awake they would have looked up and seen as the patterns radiated out from her room, a kaleidoscope of white and blue decorating the castle walls for just a second before she stopped, and they melted away in the warm night.

All the years growing up she'd practised secretly and with Anna, and she still couldn't make her father understand. It felt like there was another, tiny little Elsa inside her that her father hated, and no matter how hard she tried and how pretty she made her she could never make him love that part of Elsa the way he loved the rest. Some nights she could feel it behind her eyes, in her head. Passing through the north corridor she'd look out at the huge north mountain and she knew she could do so much more.

She sighed and tried to get her head back into the figures and numbers in front of her, but it just wasn't happening. Her eyes and concentration slid away from them until she simply gave up.

"…ls…"

She looked up. What did…

"…lsa!"

Elsa looked at the window and gasped. Without thinking about what her father had said that very day she crawled onto her desk on hands and knees and reached for the window-clasp. She had to grit her teeth to avoid shouting out as Anna tumbled through the glass and the two of them landed on the floor with a dull thud.

"Anna what are you doing!"

Anna coughed through the long thin package she was holding in her mouth. "Visiting you!" She dusted herself down, her dress twisted up into a very un-girlish series of knots that left her legs free.

Elsa gaped. "H…How!?"

Anna straightened out her dress and removed the...Elsa almost screamed as she spotted the handle of the ice-knife sticking out of the flannel. Anna had clambered across the castle roofs holding a sword in her mouth, she thought with horror.

Just like a storybook hero, another part of her thought, enraptured.

"They locked my bedroom door."

A wise precaution. They forgot the window though I guess. "Anna don't you remember what father said?" Elsa asked, panicking just thinking about the threat he'd dangled over both their heads. She'd already accepted not being able to use her powers anymore, had even accepted not be able to play at night anymore. But to not see her again anymore? For however long? For any length of time at all? It made her scared, really scared. Scared like she'd been forever ago taking Anna up her mountain.

Anna put her hands on her hips and gave Elsa her best glare, glaring as effectively as a nine year-old could; not well at all. "I don't care what daddy said," Anna said. "If I'm gonna play with my sister I'm gonna and no evil king is gonna stop me!" She held the knife up in one hand and for a second Elsa really could believe Anna was the knight she always wanted to be. She looked fearless.

Elsa smiled and laughed for the first time since they'd left the meeting room father had scolded them in. She felt better just having Anna around, like the small piece of her ice she'd left in her little sister called out to her and made her whole when it was near. Anna didn't judge her or her powers. Without thinking she rushed forward and hugged Anna to her as hard as she could. She's so warm. She felt tears pricking at her eyes.

"Elsa what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Anna didn't argue or try to push her away. The little girl knew without asking something really was wrong. She had started her lessons later than Elsa and already they were annoying to her. She wanted to be learning useful things like…like how to make things and defend things and how to make people happy. Instead she was learning how to look and act pretty.

"They keep telling me who I have to be," Elsa mumbled into her sister's hair. "All my tutors keep telling me I have to be this perfect person and I'm scared I'll never be that Anna."

"Yeah well my tutor keeps telling me I have to be full of charm and grace, and always wear pink and curtsey," Anna said back.

"Well my ugly tutors keep saying I need to always smile and never be seen eating, or freeze her tea when she tries to drink it."

"Well my horrible, really smelly tutors say I can't climb around the castle or scrape my knees."

Both sisters collapsed into giggling, the tears on their face now from laughter and joy instead of sadness and fear. For the rest of the night they went back and forth laughing and talking, their usual play with ice and snow forgotten. Instead they just sat there, holding onto each other's hands and talking. Two girls; one with a heart of fire but wrapped in ice, the other with a heart of ice covered in warmth.

They think we should be like other princesses.

But we know better.