Ten

The home for orphans had been Anna's idea, naturally. While Elsa was been pining away in her room year after year, young Anna- scarcely fifteen- sought a way to make something out of her loss of parents. She realized there were others who had no parents or guardians while Anna had a castle and a sister and the recently moved-in Ingvalda. They had nothing.

She reached out to the custodian and pleaded a home for orphans be built. Her wish was granted, and since then, Arendelle had its own home for the children that were much less fortunate.

Elsa found it hard to smile in such a place. As she looked around, there were children playing and laughing like there wasn't a care in the world. The talking snowman was a big part of that. But...how can they be so happy?

When the king and queen were lost at sea, Elsa thought she'd never be happy again. In fact, the next time she'd felt something akin to bliss was when she fled to the north mountain and pretended like she could start a new life.

Scorn for children was pretty low, even for her. She knew that. But as she looked around, she saw their toothless smiles and high pitched giggles and thought how unfair that she'd never been able to giggle and laugh after the gloves were shoved on.

"Elsa!" Anna laughed, pulling her sister out of her bitter thoughts. "Come play!"

Elsa forced a smile at her sister, who was waving a carrot in her hand. The snowman whose nose had been stolen was jumping up and reaching with his twig arms.

"No fair! I can't reach!" Olaf said, stretching up in vain. This caused the surrounding children to burst into giggles.

"Catch!" Anna said, tossing it to one of the kids. The little boy caught it with both arms and hugged it tight with a wide smile.

Olaf turned around and ran at the kid. "Give it back!"

The child shrieked and bolted away, taking a hoard of the other children with him.

The snowman followed behind on waddling legs, saying, "Hey, get back here! You'd better not eat my nose!"

The room suddenly bled dry of life besides the two sisters. Anna's face was glowing with happiness, and her cheeks were two rosy blotches of pure joy. She turned to Elsa, who again faked her smile. In truth, she felt it was easier to breathe now that the children were gone.

"Isn't it great here?" Anna asked with a sigh. "Olaf says the children always want to play. Which is really great for him, since I can't remember the last time when he wasn't pumping with energy."

Elsa looked around what was the orphans dining room. There was a long table with chairs lining every inch of it. A bowl sat in the middle, no traces of any food left.

She ran her finger across the wood of the table, trying to be happy for them. To be happy that these children who had faced such tragedy were able to act normal again and play and laugh and sit at the table with the new family they'd created.

These children had so little, but they had much more than what Princess Elsa then had.

"Elsa?" Anna asked, waking her a second time.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Elsa said, shaking her head and looking her sister in the eyes. Anna's joyful glow had faded, her braids even seeming to hang a little limper.

"Are you... okay?" she asked. "I mean, I don't know exactly what you're thinking, because I never really do since you're still kind of a closed book to me, but..."

Elsa waited for her and she paused to bite her lip and look around the room.

"Is it... is it our parents?"

Maybe Elsa wasn't as much of a closed book as Anna thought.

Elsa's failure to answer and her gaze quickly darting to the tabletop confirmed Anna's hypothesis.

"I felt kind of uneasy when I first came in here," Anna confessed, leaning against one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table that Elsa sat at. "I mean, when our parents died, we had no one but each other, and... well, it was lonely for both of us. And I don't blame you for anything," Anna hurried to say, afraid she'd hurt Elsa by reopening issues. "I know why you had to stay away from me."

"I shouldn't have," Elsa muttered, still staring at the table.

"You did the best you could," Anna shrugged.

"No, I didn't," the queen countered, glancing up. Anna had one braid in her hand and was pulling ever so slightly on it, a nervous reflex. "If I had done my best, I would have been a better sister. I would have been in control of my powers and I wouldn't have shut you out."

Anna was for once, silent. Elsa knew exactly what Anna was thinking; Yes, you could have. But you didn't.

"I just... these kids have been through a lot too. One of the girls accidentally poisoned her parents when she made little cakes with toxic berries in them," Anna said. "And she's getting help to recover, but she's never going to shake the fact that it was her fault.

"We couldn't have known there was going to be a storm, Elsa," Anna emphasized. "You and I can't blame ourselves."

Elsa's heart was twisting into shapes that made it hard to stand. She slipped into one of the small chairs, and Anna mimicked.

"I just... if we had just asked them to not go-"

"Elsa," Anna said firmly. She reached across the table and grabbed her sister's hand. Elsa hardly flinched. "You have to let it go."

Let it go.

She'd known that phrase before. When she'd ran from her problems and built a castle of ice. The same words shouldn't have been applicable to facing one of the problems she'd run from. She'd thought maybe her demons would disappear if she tried banishing them.

Someone else she knew had been clinging to their demons. Memories of Hans caught in horror-struck immobilization under the control of his likeness in fire drifted to her head. Fire-Hans had scared her, reminding her of the monster he was. Or still is? Could he still be the same person?

She stared at the table again, looking for answers in the swirls of peeling wood.

The past is in the past.

Elsa took a deep breath and exhaled a portion of her worries with it.

My parents are dead.

I could have treated Anna better.

Hans was a vile monster.

But it was out of her control. These problems weren't something to beat herself with, they were there for her to remedy. She couldn't bring her parents back, but she still had a loving, caring sister to treat like the princess she fully deserved to be. As for Hans... she'd recently accepted him as her first friend outside of family. She'd have to trust that that Hans had perished in flames long ago, and from ashes, this newer one may have emerged. And if not, maybe someday soon he would. He'd be a phoenix.

She had much to conquer herself. She couldn't let guilt and fear scratch and claw at her every day. She remembered an old story Gerda would tell, the Legend of the Snowbird, a creature who had once been too scared to play with the other birds, until he finally grew courageous enough to trust and love them. They made the snowbird their king when he became brave enough to face the shapeless enemy called fear.

I'll be the snowbird, Elsa thought. And Hans will be a phoenix.

She finally turned back to her sister with a genuine smile and nodded. "You're right," she said. "Thank you."

Anna's mouth stretched wide with happiness. Still holding her sister's hand, she squeezed with reassurance.

"I hate seeing you sad, Elsa," she said. "You deserve to be happy."

Before Elsa could recognize the warm bubbles of pride in her stomach, heavy footsteps entered the room.

"Kristoff!" Anna greeted and let go of Elsa's hand to jump at her man. Kristoff was only caught slightly off guard, laughing as Anna enthusiastically hugged him. They shared a quick kiss before Anna refrained from clinging to anything besides his hand.

"I had a feeling I'd find you here," he said with a jolly edge to his voice. He noticed Elsa and nodded in respect. "Though I'll admit it's a surprise to see you here."

Elsa smiled at him and rose, nodding in return. "I've only been here a few times. It was Anna's idea to bring me here."

"Oh?" he asked, turning back to the girl with the stupidly in love grin.

"Yeah, I was thinking it'd be nice to visit the kids and Olaf," Anna said, then blinked her eyes rapidly as she remembered something. "Oh, geez. I totally forgot! We're riding today, aren't we?"

"Well, that was the idea," Kristoff said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Your horse is outside, but if you're busy with Elsa-"

"No, no, I'm so stupid," Anna groaning, punishing herself with a slap to the forehead. "I didn't even think!" She turned to her sister with a distressed look. "Elsa, I'm really sorry. I'm going to have to cancel tea today. I promised Kristoff that we'd go riding and have a picnic. I mean, if you want to come..."

But Elsa could tell that both Anna and Kristoff had nothing but each other now on the mind. And besides acting like an unneeded third wheel on a bicycle, Elsa had lessons with Hans today.

So she waved them away, saying, "No, it's fine. You two have your fun."

Anna shot her a grateful look as Olaf waddled back into the room with his nose missing. His beady eyes found Kristoff, face lighting up.

"Oh, good! Kristoff's here! Gimmie a carrot, I think my nose just got eaten."

"Lesson number four," Hans said, hands held elegantly behind his back. "Trust."

"Trust?" Elsa asked, holding her hands out blindly. "You know, I don't really feel as though this blindfold is going to help develop any trustworthiness."

In the dark nothingness, she felt his hand grab hers. "This exercise will also build agility and accuracy. To have control of your power means that you're going to have to trust it even without all senses. And sight is a huge one."

He led her to the bed, which he helped her sit on. She sat with her hands folded elegantly, awaiting instructions.

"I want you to build a statue on the floor," Hans said. "Without looking."

Elsa frowned. "But... what if I accidentally hit something?"

"Just focus," Hans assured. She felt the bed shift under her, and she guessed he'd sat down. "What do you want to make?"

She bit her lip and tried to focus on which direction the floor was. Definitely down. She took an image into her mind and held her palms facing the stone floor. Elsa felt the ice leaving her fingertips as she blindly sculpted.

She heard Hans chuckle beside her, and she stopped. "What is it?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing, nothing," he said, clearing his throat. "Continue."

She let it slide and kept building. Eventually, she finished her masterpiece.

"Can I look now?" she asked eagerly, not waiting for his word to rip off the blindfold. The sight before her eyes was not a pretty one to be greeted with.

The snowman she'd tried to build had a body and middle, but its head was lopsided and hanging to the right. Its icicle nose was pointing on top like a hat.

She couldn't help but giggle at the sight. "That was a failure."

"Not entirely," Hans said, pointing at it. "You contained your ice within the same space. You trusted yourself enough to not have shaking, unreliable hands. I'm sure if you hadn't had the blindfold on, then your snowman may have been built less... abstract."

"Should I try again?" she asked, holding the blindfold up. He shook his head no and took the strip from her.

"What's next is slightly more challenging," he said, rising from the mattress. He turned to stand in front of her with his feet spread apart and his arms tucked neatly behind his back. "I want you to freeze me."

Elsa immediately clawed her nails into the bed. "What?"

"I want you to freeze me," he repeated, nodding at his feet.

"But...but..." she sputtered, images of Anna on the fjord and Anna at tea springing through her mind and lighting all kinds of warning signals.

"You have to trust that you'll be able to retract your ice as easy as you can put it on," Hans explained.

"But I can't," she bit.

"Then it's good to practice on me."

Elsa couldn't comprehend the meaning of his words. "What?"

"You're terrified of freezing people, so I'm the best candidate to practice on. If you can't unfreeze me, no harm done, right?"

There it was again. He implied that he meant nothing to Elsa. He'd done that once before after telling her the story of the girl who could make plants grow and shrivel. He'd laughed, Who is there to hurt here?

"Why do you do that?" Elsa asked.

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Do what?"

"You're always saying stuff like that. That it's no great loss if I hurt you."

He shrugged, but his eyes couldn't meet hers. "It wouldn't, to you. After all, I'm only a prisoner."

"You're more than that, you're... you're my teacher," Elsa hesitated, trying to vocalize her point. "If you get hurt, then how will I learn to control myself?"

He nodded understandingly, but still couldn't meet her eyes. "I suppose so."

But that wasn't right. It didn't feel correct leaving Elsa's tongue. It wasn't because he was her teacher...then what was it?

"I promise you'll be able to control it," Hans assured. "If you're so worried about me, know that I can melt the ice easily." A small spark erupted in his palm to prove his point. "Now, freeze my feet to the floor."

Elsa stood slowly and clear her throat. She looked her teacher in the eye and felt calmer than she'd expected. Maybe it was because of the freeing she'd done at the 't let fear consume you. Trust in yourself.

Exhaling, she released ice from her palms and watched them curl around Hans' legs, taking shape and firmly cementing him to the ground. When it climbed to his thigh, she stopped, bringing her hands down to her side and took a breath.

"Good, now unfreeze me," Hans said, his voice gentle and reassuring.

She nodded and held her palms out, retracting the ice from his body. Love, love, love. Anna loves you. Hans... is your friend.

Before she knew it, the ice had cleared from the room and Hans was standing perfectly unharmed.

She couldn't help the force that pushed the corners of her mouth into smile. "I did it!" she laughed, raising her hands to inspect the powers that hadn't failed her. "I wasn't even scared!"

She looked up to Hans, who sported a similar, proud smile. "Great job."

The queen had the sudden impulse to run at him, to feel him in her arms and know that she hadn't hurt him. She didn't fight the urge.

The thirteenth prince was surprised with the speed that she rushed and jumped at him. His eyes were wide as Elsa squeezed him in an unexpected show of touch. Immediately, his muscles relaxed and he let his arms wrap around her.

Elsa bit her lip and pulled away just slightly. His arms held her loosely enclosed.

"I'm... I'm sorry," she said, but her smile almost suggested she wasn't. "I was just excited..."

"No, no, it's fine," he dismissed it, his own cheeky grin growing. "After all, we're friends now, right?"

Elsa laughed, a sound she was sure she hadn't heard since Hans first appeared. That only widened her grin.

Locked in an embrace seemed so effortless, so natural. So surprisingly comfortable. Elsa savored the sensation before her mind could clear and tell her she was being ridiculous. But they weren't interrupted by her mind.

A sudden sharp knock made them both jump out of each other's arms. Hans' two cheek blush set in as Elsa cleared her throat and said, "Come in."

It was a servant who looked more distressed than Elsa liked.

"Your majesty's attention is required immediately," he said, complexion pale as death.

Elsa furrowed her brow and stepped closer to him. "What is it?"

"It's a body, your majesty."

All the happiness drained out of Elsa as her heart . Not Anna. It can't be Anna.

"It's... it's not..." she stammered, but couldn't bring herself to say it.

The servant seemed to understand, and shook his head. "No, it's not Anna, your majesty."

A wave of relief flooded her, only to be washed away with anxiety at his next words.

"It's the King of the Southern Isles."

For those of you who keep asking for Olaf; ta-da! And now the problem of missing family gets a little (a lot) more drastic.

Super sorry about the late update; I'm on a mission trip to Montana and the most technology I can have is my phone, and updating this slipped my mind.

Thanks again to all you beautiful people who leave reviews.