GORE AND... GORE IN THIS CHAPTER.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stop Hitting Yourself
"Is that my tower?"
Elsa examined the statue. It seemed to be a cross-section of Monument Island, showcasing the machine she'd seen at its base.
"Yes," she said.
"The Siphon?" Anna read, confused. "My tower was a Siphon?"
The memory came back to Elsa - it felt like an age ago, before she'd gotten Anna back. She remembered seeing the machine, the warning signs.
The blood.
"You were singing," Elsa said. "And the machine came to life in response."
"It was draining me," Anna said, horrified. "When I was little - before I was in the tower - I wasn't just able to open tears. I could actually make them."
"Anna?" Elsa asked. Anna wasn't looking at her. She was staring into the distance, as though she weren't aware of anything around her.
Twin drips of blood flowed from Anna's nose.
Once Elsa noticed the blood, she immediately went to her sister's side. She pulled one of her sleeves down and used the end to dab Anna's lip clean, using her other hand to caress her sister's back. Elsa had thought the high altitude was behind her nosebleeds, but then why would Anna, who had grown up at this elevation, be getting them all of a sudden?
She wondered if she should ask Anna to wait out on the gondola for her until she returned.
It was starting to occur to her the situation she was about to put herself in. She wanted to be confident for Anna's sake, but the chances of her coming out of this encounter alive were dwindling, and she still hadn't told her sister the truth about the two of them. She might not get another opportunity.
"Anna. There's something important you need to know."
"If you're trying to convince me to stay behind while you confront the Snow Queen, then...uh...you can't."
"No, Anna, that's not what I-"
Her sister pushed the doors open and walked inside, unprepared for the lack of traction. She slipped and fell back, but was lucky enough to be caught by Elsa.
The room was completely covered in snow all the way up to the ceiling. The floors were made of slick, dark blue ice that was so smooth, the girls could see own reflections clearly. Pillars shaped like large stacked snowflakes jutted from the floor. Snow was gently falling from the ceiling in fluffy clumps, as though they were outside.
Natural light came from above them, through an ice window in the center of the ceiling that colored the room in different shades of blue and purple. It shone down on a throne at the top of a staircase, framed by a giant hollowed orb.
Sitting on her throne was the Snow Queen, clad in a sharp, steel blue dress, with a tall collar, long see-through cape, and puffed out sleeves that ended at her wrists. Her hair was jet black, styled upward in the back, and unkempt bangs falling in front of her eyes.
"Good evening, Anna…" the Snow Queen said, eyes locked on Anna. To Elsa, the way this awful woman addressed her sister was beyond disgusting and her tone lingered in Elsa's ears, making her shudder. "My dear sister… How I've missed you."
Anna's hand let go of Elsa's, she may as well have thrown Elsa's heart to the ground. The younger woman took a step forward, her eyes locked on the black-haired woman before her.
"S...Sister?" Anna stepped closer and closer until she was walking up the stairs, not even noticing that a few moments ago she'd barely been able to keep herself from falling.
"Of course," the queen laughed, stood up, and took Anna's hand. Elsa wanted to scream at her to let her go, but no words came out. "Why else would I go to such lengths to keep you safe?"
"Safe from what?" Anna gestured to the door. "What danger out there was worth thirteen years of isolation? Being treated like an experiment, being watched without knowing?"
"It kept you from her, did it not? The False Queen."
"Elsa isn't…"
"I've seen what she's done at the cost of getting you back, my love. I've seen the danger she put you in just to keep you. What lengths do you think she'll go? Could you live with yourself knowing that she destroyed a nation for your sake?"
"I… she…"
"Look at her, sister. Does she not seem familiar to you?"
"Stop it!" Elsa yelled. "We've had enough. Anna, let's go, we're leaving. We're forgetting everything about this place."
"Where do you think you'd be taking her, Elsa?"
"I'm taking her far away from you, where we'll be together. I'm not going to let you keep us from being happy."
"Oh, Elsa. You should've known, there are no happy endings...not for people like us. Happy endings are for fairy tales. You cannot protect your sister from a world that would harm her, use her; you cannot even protect her from yourself!"
Before Elsa could move, a burst of magic hit her in the face, knocking her to the frozen floor.
Anna tackled the queen to the ground, pinning her arms to the floor, figuring that the older woman couldn't put up much of a fight on her own. She smiled up at her.
"Oh, Anna," she shook her head. She took a deep breath and blew. Snow was exhaled from her mouth into Anna's face, causing her to stagger back. The queen created a tall icicle fence around the young girl. She picked herself up from the ground, and smoothed out her dress. "Be a good girl for your sister and stay put. I don't want you throwing yourself in front of danger like a fool. I know you're very good at that."
Elsa shook her head, trying to shake off the blow. When she looked up, the Snow Queen swirled her arms around, snow gathered around her and took on a large slender shape. Elsa braced herself, expecting the queen to hurl that snow at her, but the snow stopped moving after a moment.
What looked like a simple hill of snow suddenly turned an ugly head with glowing blue eyes toward Elsa. The snow uncoiled itself from the queen and hissed. The Queen had created a giant snow serpent.
It slithered toward Elsa with a gaping mouth, baring icicle fangs ready to sink into her. She evaded its first strike, but it was far too fast to outrun.
When it struck a second time, she managed to duck behind one of the pillars, causing the snake to bite the ice and get its fangs stuck. The rest of it's body knotted up tight to try and yank itself free, its thrashing shaking the room and causing chunks of the window to break and fall to the floor. Elsa took this opportunity to create an ice blade, decapitating the beast.
The headless body flailed more violently at the loss of its head, hitting Elsa in the gut with it's tail, and then became a lifeless pile of snow.
Elsa was thrown across the jagged ice floor, her arm was slashed open from the fall, and she landed roughly on her stomach against the side of a wedge.
The Snow Queen spread her arms wide, a large glow formed from her chest and grew larger, though Elsa couldn't see it as she struggled to get to her feet. The ball of magic was hurled in her direction, and Elsa threw up one hand, blood flying from the gash in her arm. A shield of ice curved around her, but shattered once the queen's magic struck it.
Countless icicle shards shot down from the ceiling, barely giving Elsa enough time to shield herself again. The ground beneath her swirled around her feet, freezing them in place. Elsa tried willing the ice to release her, but it wouldn't work.
She looked up through her shield and saw the queen, cruel smirk fixed on her face, had one hand out in front of her. The other was raised in the air, raining shards ice from above that were slowly chipping away Elsa's cover. Elsa threw her arms up.
A blast of ice shot toward the Snow Queen, the force from it slamming the older woman against the back of her throne behind her. The queen looked up at her wrist, which was frozen to the throne with ice that grew up her arm. She struggled to pull away from it, clawing at the ice that bound her until her fingernails bled.
She raised her free hand at Elsa to attack, only to have it also pinned to the throne.
"Give up," Elsa said. "Anna was never yours."
The Snow Queen snarled, tugging against her wrists. "I'll never give up," she spat, "Anna is mine, do you hear me?"
Blood dripped from the ice binding the Queen's wrists.
"She's mine," the Queen continued, "mine, mine, mine-"
There was a horrifying tearing sound, and Elsa felt as though the bottom of her stomach had dropped through the floor. The Queen's wrists had split open, blood pouring through the skin, hints of muscle visible through the liquid. The Snow Queen wrenched, once, twice, and then the muscle was rippling and twisting, pulling away from the bone-
The Queen gave one last tug, and her wrists separated entirely, blood pouring from the twin stumps. Her face was still twisted in a vicious snarl as she stepped towards Elsa.
"You thought you could just waltz in here and take my sister from me? You, who gave her up without a second thought? You thought you were worthy of her?"
Her eyes were wide and rolling in their sockets. Frost covered the ends of her arms, freezing the blood solid.
"If I can't have her," the Snow Queen hissed, "there's no way in hell that you can!"
Ice magic shot wildly from the Queen's arms, uncontrolled and undirected. Several bolts slammed into the Queen herself, but most smashed into pillars, shattering them. One hit the ice window in the ceiling, and Elsa raised a hand to shield herself from the shards.
She registered that the ground was shaking, and the rest of the ceiling was crashing down around her. She tore her gaze away from the manic Queen and rushed to her sister. A quick blast of magic took care of the icicle fence, and the pair ran for the doors.
"No!" the Queen howled. Her arms and legs were frozen into a blue ice now, and she struggled against her limbs, trying to get to Elsa. "No, no, no-"
Elsa pulled Anna through the doors, and they watched as the walls collapsed in on themselves, burying the Snow Queen in a mountain of ice shards.
Elsa hunched over, breathing deeply and trying not to vomit. The way the Snow Queen had torn her own hands off...
"What did she mean?" Anna fretted. "That you should seem familiar to me? Do we… did we know each other before?"
Elsa clenched her eyes shut, bracing herself against hard words yet to come. She'd thought, with the Snow Queen vanquished, that the hard part would be over.
"I… I never meant to hide it from you."
"What's 'it'? What do you mean?" Anna half-laughed. "That we're sisters?"
Elsa brought her fingers up to her mouth, remembering their very passionate kiss. It had happened, yes, but that didn't mean she should outright lie to Anna about it. She knew she had to come clean, but Anna had somehow guessed it.
"You're my… yes."
"I… kinda sorta already figured that out."
"You did? How?"
"Look, the Snow Queen was always gonna be either your sister or you from an alternate universe. Oh! She also could've been me in disguise, that would've been cool."
"The Snow Queen couldn't have been you in disguise, Anna."
"She - er, I - uh, we? Anyways, it was totally a possibility! I'm just fooling you into thinking we're on the same side so I can learn your weaknesses, and then dramatically turn on you when you're most vulnerable!"
"Except I've known who the Snow Queen was for years, and you and I have been traveling together the entire time."
"Oh. Right. Well, I still think it would've been cool. Anyways, if you're the Snow Queen's sister, and I'm the Snow Queen's sister, you must also be my sister. And if the Snow Queen is you from an alternate universe, and she and I are sisters, then you and I are also sisters. Therefore, you and I are definitely sisters." Anna looked very pleased with herself.
Elsa's brow furrowed. "I'm confused."
Anna shrugged, entirely unconcerned. "Maybe someday you'll get it."
When they reached the helm of The Hand of the Queen, they flew it back to Monument Island. The statue had been badly damaged by Songbird, but the Siphon was still intact inside of it, limiting Anna's powers.
"Anna, is there any reason at all that you can't just open a tear to Paris, and we can walk through and live happily ever after?"
"It doesn't really work like that. At least, not while the Siphon is active."
"This is ridiculous." Elsa retorted solemnly, staring at the ruined angel before them. It had to be destroyed somehow. If only they had a way to get Songbird to destroy the Siphon for them. The monster was good at destroying things, it could've been useful for once.
"What are you waiting for?" Anna asked, putting her hand on her shoulder. "Destroy the Siphon."
"Me?"
"Yeah, I mean, you could bring the whole thing down with your magic!"
"Anna, I…"
"It would be so easy. If it's gone, Elsa, then I can make tears to wherever we want. We'd have our happily ever after."
Elsa stared down at the ocean. She took a deep breath and flexed her hands toward the water. With a thrust of her hands, she pointed them toward the tower, freezing the water below and stabbing the heart of the building with dozens of giant icicles.
There was an explosion of white and purple that shook the entire airship, signaling that Elsa's ice had struck the giant Siphon. Smoke filled the air, and pieces of debris slammed into the side of the ship, but they did no damage to it outside of chipping the paint. All that Songbird had left of the angel fell to the sea until the only remaining thing was the platform and some rubble.
Elsa marveled at her work, the light from the glow making her ice a radiant indigo. She looked at Anna, who was quite literally glowing with happiness. While it was true that her magic could be destructive, at the same time her magic was something Anna loved, and - for once - it had managed to do something for her sister to make her happy.
A screech echoed through the air.
The bird shot from the clouds, and Elsa immediately stepped in front of Anna with her hand outstretched and ready to strike the flying beast. But it did no good. Songbird's massive body smashed into The Hand of the Queen.