Elsa paced the floor anxiously, rubbing her hands together as she felt slightly chilled for the first time in her life.
"Conceal, don't feel. Conceal, don't feel. Don't feel, don't feel."
Elsa collapsed on the floor of her ice castle in a lonely heap and broke into sobs. She had just turned away her sister. Again. Even worse, she had forced her away by creating a huge violent monster. Was that what she was becoming now? A violent person?
She heard a cracking nearby and looked up. The ice had turned red and sharp icicles pointed outwards from the wall. Her beautiful palace now felt more like a prison than a place of freedom.
I have to calm down before things get worse, she thought.
"Hello?" a voice asked timidly, echoing through the icy halls
Elsa froze. She didn't know where the snowman was, and she didn't want to be violent again. Quietly, she got up and crept to the stairs. A small pale girl with white hair stood by the fountain, admiring the frozen water droplets suspended in mid air.
"Silvermist would love this," she whispered aloud. Then she noticed Elsa. "Oh! Hello!"
A blast of ice flew from Elsa's hands in her surprise. The girl ducked and Elsa's hand flew to her mouth in horror.
"I'm so sorry! You have to leave, right now or you're...wait, what?" Elsa stared at the girl. She had a tuft of pure white hair and filmy wings. "What are you?"
The girl, whether or not she was human, floated over and extended a hand. Elsa took it cautiously. "My name's Peri, short for Periwinkle. I'm a Winter Frost Fairy."
She demonstrated by tapping the wall nearest to them. It instantly coated with beautiful frost patterns. Elsa gasped.
"You can make snow!"
"Well, I specialize in frost, but I can do a little snow if I want." She noticed the inlaid snowflake in the floor. "Elsa, did you do this?"
"Yes," Elsa replied hesitantly. "How did you know my name?"
"I ran into your cousin Rapunzel in town. And Hans. They didn't know I was a fairy, but they told me what happened. I couldn't resist. I must say, I've never seen a human able to make snow before. It's fascinating!"
"You'd be the first," Elsa muttered, wandering out to the balcony.
"Yeah, I take it nobody else is too happy about this," Peri said, following.
"Nobody has! Not even my parents. Even before Anna got hurt they were scared. Now I see they had a reason. I've put everyone in danger because I can't control my powers." She stopped, not knowing why she was telling her life story to a complete stranger, and a fairy at that. "Are you real?" she asked suddenly, chaining the subject.
"Completely," she answered. "I live in Pixie Hollow with other fairies. We only come to the mainland to change the seasons. I'm only here now because…"
"Because I made a mess of the weather?" Elsa interrupted bitterly. "It's mid-July and everyone is freezing to death."
"Well, it's not your fault. If they told you to keep it in, then you never got a chance to practice."
"Can you help me?" Elsa asked suddenly. "I've frozen my whole country and I don't know how to control my powers."
"I can try. Basically you just need practice. Show me what you can do, and don't be afraid."
Before she could begin, however, the giant snowman came back. When he saw Periwinkle, he roared and charged her.
"No!" Elsa cried. "I don't want to get rid of her."
"She stay?"
"Yes. This is Peri."
"My name's Marshmallow!" the snowman said proudly.
"Marshmallow?" the girls asked.
"Little snowman brother named me," Marshmallow explained. "Mama like?"
Elsa smiled. "I love it. Peri's going to help me practice snow now. Can you go back outside and make sure nobody else comes in?"
"Ok," Marshmallow said as he lumbered back.
Elsa and Peri giggled. "He's like a big, grumpy puppy," Peri said.
"Yeah," Elsa said. "Makes sense. He's only been alive for five minutes."
All through the evening Peri worked with Elsa, as they experimented with snow, ice and frost. Elsa felt exhausted; she hadn't used her powers at this extent for this length of time since she was a little girl. Finally, she asked Peri if they could take a short break. Peri agreed.
"I don't want to push you," she said.
"So, why are you here? How did you find me? Am I in trouble?"
"No. We fairies don't watch every city to make sure the weather's behaving properly. I don't think anyone at Pixie Hollow knows about this yet. I'm here because...I'm an outcast. See, the Hollow has different woods for each season. Winter fairies have to stay in the Winter Woods so they don't overheat. Even the Autumn Woods are too warm for us. But my sister is a warm weather fairy, and long story short we crossed the borders to see each other. Now the Scout Fairies are trying to arrest me."
"You have a sister?" Elsa asked softly.
Periwinkle nodded. "Her name is Tinkerbell, but everyone just calls her Tink. We were born from the same baby's laugh. She's a tinker fairy. It means she works with objects that wash up on our shore and makes machines. She's really good at it. But I had to leave her to escape imprisonment."
"I know how that feels," Elsa said wistfully.
The fairy waited patiently. Sighing, Elsa went on to tell her story, about how after Anna had been hurt, she had stayed away from her. They nearly reconnected at the coronation party, but Elsa had gotten scared and had shut up again.
"So...you spent years of not using your powers in hopes of learning to control them?" Peri asked.
"It didn't work," Elsa said.
"I kind of noticed."
They were working on target practice when a huge roar from Marshmallow interrupted. A loud commotion ensued.
Elsa looked up worriedly. "I'm going to go see what that's about. Just to make sure it's not Anna."
"Ok, I'll wait here."
Elsa ran lightly down the stairs, her heels clicking daintily on the ice. There was a lot of yelling, enough to make her nervous. Cautiously, she cracked open the door and peeked out. Almost instantly she recognized the devilishly handsome stranger who had captured her naive sister's heart. Prince Hans. And he had come with an army. Two more suspicious looking men saw her and snuck around her guard. Elsa backed away quickly, but it was too late. She fled up the stairs, closely followed by the scoundrels as the palace once more changed colors. Now it was a yellow.
"Peri! They're here. The mob, they've come to kill me!"
"Whoa, calm down! Don't loose control, and don't turn your back on them. Self defense, remember?"
The men burst in, and Peri shrunk into the shadows, having nothing to hide her wings with. Startled, Elsa turned to face them, and watched as one aimed a crossbow at her.
"No, please!"
She put her hands in front of her in frightened surrender. The bow fired. But there was no pain. She looked up. A millimeter from her forehead was the sharp tip of the arrow; the rest was embedded in a fresh ice shard. Realizing how close she had been to death, Elsa went into high alert, remembering what Peri had said about self defense. Her eyes tracked the men, who were moving quickly around the little wall.
"Stay away!" she commanded, sending forth a warning shot. She winced, still unused to purposefully putting people in danger. She didn't want to do this.
But she quickly got used to it when she realized they wouldn't back off from idle threats. Eventually the guards stood on either side of her, neither ready to fire nor making any attempt to do so. Her head flashed left to right, and as soon as one made a move, she sent sharp icicles to pin him against the wall. One slowly advanced towards his throat. A motion from the other, out of a corner of her eye, and she sent a blast in that direction, knocking the bow from his grasp. Peri ran from her hiding place, seeing how lethal Elsa's ice was getting.
"Elsa, don't hurt them," she pleaded.
Elsa didn't listen. She hemmed him in, then formed a huge ice cube that advanced towards the poor fellow. Glaring in concentration as the man pushed back, she broke open the doors to the balcony through sheer will power.
"Elsa, no!" Peri cried.
Elsa didn't even hear this time. She would not be controlled by fear. It didn't scare her that this man would fall to his certain doom and death. How dare he mess with her? She was the Snow Queen! All the powers of ice and snow obeyed her!
"Queen Elsa!" Hans said, running into the room. "Don't be the monster they fear you are."
This stopped her. She gasped at the realization of what she was doing, what she had been thinking. Snow Queen? Monster was more like it. She turned to Peri, silently asking what she should do. But the little fairy didn't answer. In fact, she wasn't even looking.
Periwinkle stared at her hands in disbelief. They glowed blue, and frost shot out of them, disappearing in thin air directly in front of her, through no control of her own, Elsa could see. Then Elsa realized that the same thing was happening to her own hands, only it was snow instead of frost. She screamed in alarm, not realizing that this further convinced the soldiers that she had no control of her powers and should be killed.
"They both have powers!" one of the new men exclaimed.
Hans looked at confusion as Peri, beginning to recognize her from the village. Peri pleaded an apology with her eyes, unable to say anything under his guilty glaze. But Hans looked away at the guard Elsa had trapped in icicles, then up at the chandelier.
Suddenly he dashed over to the guard and raised his arm so that the arrow fired into the chandelier.
All eyes looked up as the chandelier began to fall. Elsa grabbed Peri and darted out of the way, their hands still glowing and spewing ice and snow. Before they knew what was happening they were enveloped in a blinding white light. Elsa stopped running when the environment suddenly changed. It was warmer, and there was a general loud noise and chaos all around. The loudest noise drew her attention from right behind her. She turned and saw something racing towards them, and fast. There was no time to move or react properly. They were going to die.
Elsa screamed.