Elsa found herself out on the frozen fjord as a blinding blizzard raged around her. Even though the low temperature didn't bother her, the windblown particles of snow and ice still stung as they struck her skin. She had no idea which direction she was heading in as she staggered across the ice against the buffeting winds, but she knew she had to keep going.
Elsa thought she heard a faint voice call out from the distance. She couldn't tell what the voice said, or which direction it came from. She wasn't even sure she had really heard it over the roar of the storm. She paused and looked around, but there was nothing to see. She continued on, unsure if she was even still going in the same direction.
"Queen Elsa," the voice called out, louder and clearer. Elsa was sure she had heard it this time. It was a man's voice; a voice she recognized.
Elsa stopped and peered in the direction of the voice. A figure began to emerge from the storm. Elsa couldn't make it out at first, but as the figure came closer, she realized who it was. It was Hans! Elsa turned and began to flee.
"Elsa!" Hans shouted. "You can't run from this!"
His words stopped Elsa in her tracks and she turned around to face him.
"I have to save my sister!" Elsa told him.
"Your sister?" Hans replied. "You could have saved her, but now it's too late."
"What?" Elsa asked. She didn't understand what was going on.
"Your sister is dead," Hans explained bluntly, "because of you!"
"No!" Elsa muttered in disbelief as she turned away. She couldn't believe it; it couldn't be true. And yet, just the idea alone was overwhelming. Elsa felt her knees weaken and she collapsed to the ice in tears. The storm swirling around her immediately calmed.
Through her sobbing, Elsa heard the sound of Hans drawing his sword from its scabbard. She looked back over her shoulder.
"You can't run from this," Hans said as he raised his sword.
"No!" screamed a voice from out of nowhere. It was Anna!
Elsa watched as Anna ran up to come between her and Hans. As Hans swung his sword, Anna raised her right hand to block it. Suddenly, Anna's body turned to solid ice. Hans' sword struck Anna's frozen hand. The sword didn't break.
Anna's frozen hand cracked where the sword struck it, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as Elsa watched in horror as the crack continued down Anna's arm, expanding, splitting and spreading throughout Anna's icy form. The cracks reached Anna's face last, ultimately shattering her lifeless eyes. Anna's frozen body then abruptly disintegrated into a heap of unrecognizable icy shards.
"Anna!" Elsa wailed as she scrambled over and futilely scooped up the remains of her sister in her cupped hands. "No! Anna! Please, no!"
"You can't run from this," Hans repeated as he raised his sword again, and, for a split second, Elsa wondered why he kept saying that. Then that thought passed, and Elsa closed her eyes and braced herself for the blow...
Elsa suddenly woke up with a start, gasping for breath with her heart racing. As she calmed down, she realized she had just been having a nightmare. Disoriented, she squinted into the dimness. It took her a moment to realize she was in her bed in her bedroom. At first she hadn't recognized her room, because everything, including her bed, was covered with a thick blanket of fresh white snow. Elsa sighed. Even while she slept her powers were reacting to her feelings. She tried to thaw the room, but it was no use. In her current emotional state, she could only make it colder.
Elsa got out of bed, stepping into the snow that covered the floor with her bare feet. She had never walked barefoot in the snow before and she found that she actually liked how it felt; if only she weren't so worried she might have really been able to enjoy it. She went to over to the window and opened it. With a twist of her hand, she created a cyclone of frigid air that sucked up the snow in the room and blew it out through the window into the courtyard below.
With her room clear of the snow, Elsa sat down on the windowsill. The night air was cold but to Elsa it felt refreshing. She leaned back against the window frame and looked out over the silent town and the frozen harbor. Elsa realized that from this vantage point she could see the spot on the fjord from her nightmare: the spot where Anna really had briefly turned to ice. Having reminded herself of the nightmare, Elsa now found that she could think of nothing else. As she sat there in the window, the haunting vision of Anna's frozen body shattering played itself out over and over in her mind, as the voice of Hans repeated the same words over and over: You can't run from this.
Elsa was certain that in reality, Hans had only said those words once. She didn't understand why the Hans of her nightmare had kept repeating himself or why those words stayed with her, but she didn't particularly care, either. She simply wanted to forget about the terrifying experience, and she knew she couldn't do that if she kept staring out at the frozen fjord where she had imagined it happened.
Elsa stood up and closed the window. She looked apprehensively at her bed. She knew she should try to go back to sleep, but she also knew that she would never be able to fall asleep in her current state of mind, and even if sleep did eventually come, it might just bring more nightmares. She sighed and turned toward the door, hoping that a walk would clear the memory of the nightmare from her mind.
As she slowly roamed the dimly-lit corridors of the palace, Elsa took notice of the artwork and furnishings that she normally paid little attention to. It had all been there since she was a child, and she realized she had always taken it all for granted. She wanted to take the opportunity to appreciate it, but in the quiet darkness, everything seemed different. The spaces seemed larger, the ceilings higher. The figures in the paintings hanging on the walls, their colors muted by the gloom, seemed to loom ominously overhead. The cold wind howled eerily outside, and Elsa could hear every creak and groan from the old castle's wooden structure.
Elsa's thoughts drifted back to her childhood and the memories of playing with Anna in the middle of the night. The castle had seemed so different then. They never thought it seemed spooky. But Elsa knew the castle was the same as it had always been. She had changed. She was afraid now. She didn't want to be. She wanted to be like the fearless little girl she was when she innocently believed that nothing bad could ever happen. She had tried so hard to keep her fear under control, and being with Anna helped. Without Anna, Elsa didn't know what she would do.
Elsa eventually came to the door to the study. She opened the door and peeked inside. The study was even darker than the hallway, as none of the lamps were lit and the fire in the fireplace had reduced itself to a few barely glowing embers. Elsa slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. She glanced briefly toward the desk, where she knew the surrender document still sat, unsigned. She wasn't ready to look at it again yet. Instead, she went to the fireplace and stared at the fading embers.
A supply of firewood was stacked next to the fireplace. Elsa carefully added some smaller pieces of wood to the fire, then picked up a fireplace poker and began to slowly prod the fire back to life. As she tended to the fire, she remembered watching her father do the same when she was little. She could almost hear his voice: Now, Elsa, watch carefully. Someday this will be your responsibility.
The fire was roaring again, and Elsa added some larger logs to sustain it. She knelt down on the floor in front of the fireplace. While the cold didn't bother her, she still enjoyed the warmth. She looked up at her father's coronation portrait, now lit from the light from the fire. He had been a young king; almost as young as she was now, Elsa realized. As she stared up at the painting in the firelight, she saw something in her father's expression she had never noticed before. Where before she had always seen only a look of confidence and courage, she now saw a hint of uncertainty and maybe even a little fear in his eyes. For the first time, the thought occurred to Elsa that her father may have been overwhelmed when he first became king. She wondered if he ever felt as conflicted as she was. She wished she could ask him. There were many things she wished she could ask him.
Elsa looked back at the desk and the surrender document. She still wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she knew she would have to make a decision. The sun would be rising soon.