With her fingers clutching onto its icy reins for dear life, Elsa sends the dragon hurtling towards the ground. The snow creature tears through the tree canopy and slams into the soil, cratering a gargantuan ice patch in the forest. Elsa falls from the dragon and stumbles onto the ice; she darts her eyes from tree to tree. The full-moon basks the snow-covered trees in a pale glow. It takes her a moment to register that her latest creation, still growling and snorting icy fog, has turned the forest into a winter scene.
A scream pierces through the silence.
"Anna!" Elsa shrieks, and she takes off in the direction of her sister's voice. Icicles sprout from her footsteps and snow peels from her hair. The temperature dips to below freezing, and the sweat beading off Elsa's forehead crystallizes into ice. She spots a shadowy heap in the distance and sprints to the edge of a snow-covered slope. Without thinking, she throws herself onto it and screams when her hands come away with blood. The horse's lifeless brown eyes stare back at her; its throat still spurting blood from an open wound.
With shaking fingers, she pulls a cloak from the saddle and holds it up to the moonlight. Her heart stops when the crocus pattern comes into view.
"Anna!" she yells, pressing the cloth into her tear-streaked face. The smell of Anna's hair on the fabric sends her heart into a pounding frenzy. A gust of wind howls through the trees, shifting the leaves and revealing a glistening trail of blood down the slope. Her ears perk at the sound of metal clattering on the ground
She loses her balance as she dashes down the slope, and stumbles momentarily before getting up and following the trail of blood streaking the snow. Her eyes widen when she comes across a blood-soaked sword discarded amidst the line of crimson – bearing the Palace's coat of arms; its handle still warm to the touch. She finds a wolf several steps down from the weapon, its lifeless body lying limp in the snow. A gasp escapes her shuddering lips as she pries open its jaws and finds blood on its fangs. The trail of blood gets thicker the further as she dashes through the woods. Two more wolves lie dead in the snow, littered with slash wounds.
The sight of Anna lying in the sleet sends Elsa crumbling to her knees. Anna's skin had turned snowy white; her tattered peasant's dress hung in shreds from her body.
"Oh god, Anna, no!" Elsa screams, hauling herself to her sister's body. She drags away the dead wolf's body clutched in Anna's grasp, and pries off the blood-soaked dagger she had sunk into its throat. Her shaking hands come away with more blood, and she frantically tries to jam her fingers into the ugly gash lining Anna's neck. In a fit of panic, she rips off a glove and freezes her sister's wound shut; Anna's eyes stir at the cold frost running up her neck.
"Please Anna, please, stay with me," Elsa pleads, cauterizing another deep cut in Anna's shoulder.
She pulls her sister's body against hers, but the strength has left Anna, and her arms lie limp by her side. Her eyes widen at pink sleet left behind where Anna's body had lain, and she frantically feels her sister's blood-soaked chest for a pulse. The faint throb of Anna's heart against her hand causes a surge of panic to well up within her, and she screams for help.
The snow-dragon roars as it lands beside the sisters. Elsa jams her hands beneath Anna's shoulders and hauls her sister upright before crumbling beneath their combined weight. A throaty groan reverberates from Anna's chest as Elsa tries desperately to drag her onto the dragon.
"Go!" Elsa screams, and throws her body over Anna as the beast soars into the sky through a thicket of frozen branches and leaves.
"Oh god, please Anna, no, no, no," she whimpers, ripping open her sister's dress and finding more claw and teeth marks strewn across her back. Elsa frantically seals each cut, before she notices her tears dripping onto Anna's back and freezing solid. The memories creep into her mind: Anna tumbling down the snow from the accident when they were children, Anna buckled over the ice palace's floor from the ice she had sent into her heart, Anna freezing herself solid to save her from Hans. It was always Anna getting hurt and it always had something to do with Elsa.
Just can't keep yourself from messing things up, can you? Tears stream from her face and flutter away into snowflakes amidst the dragon's billowing wings.
"I-I'm sorry," she stutters, clutching her sister and trying to provide some semblance of warmth to her trembling body, "I'm sorry for everything."
With night duty weighing down on his eyelids, the guard on the Palace's watch tower lifts his head as a gust of icy wind slices into his cheek. He bolts upright and widens his eyes at a huge – thing – flying in his direction. His spear clatters against the floor when he sees the Queen flying towards him astride a massive snow dragon, and he buckles backwards with all the blood drained from his face.
"Wait!" Elsa yells as she lands the beast on the parapet, "Get help!"
The dragon unleashes a ferocious roar, snapping the soldier from his shock; he barely regains his senses enough to register the sight of Queen Elsa dragging the half-bloodied and frozen Princess from the beast, and obeys her commands.
Within seconds, more soldiers arrive with a stretcher and haul away Princess Anna. Elsa follows them to the infirmary, and the Palace physician receives her with a grimace on his face. He sends the nurse away for alcohol and bandages, and examines her wounds.
"Your Majesty, Anna is seriously hurt," he says, holding a candle to her thawing wounds, "it would help us greatly if you shared with us the circumstances of this misfortune. What happened to cause her injuries?"
Elsa clutches a shuddering hand to her lips and stares at the scene of nurses attending to Anna.
"Riding accident," she whispers through her fingers, "in the woods."
"She has lost consciousness," the doctor says, "we will need some time to stitch up her wounds-"
Unable to bear the sight of her bloodied sister any longer, Elsa stumbles out of the infirmary before the doctor finishes his sentence. She runs up the stairway and gets lost in the palace, wandering the halls in a daze. The servants have retired for the night, and an empty silence greets her at every turn. After an hour of walking, she finds herself outside Anna's room, and her heart aches at the sight of the door still half-open from when she had pursued Anna.
Elsa locks the door behind her, and turns up the lamp. Despite the brightness filling the room, shadows still infiltrate the corners from the sheer volume of mess lying around. Elsa scoffs at the untidiness of Anna's room, and wonders if she'll ever unravel the shadows that plague her sister's heart. The nude painting sits on the easel with the velvet curtain pooled around its frame like a half-undone dress. It stares back at Elsa, confronting her about her own feelings – and in her confusion she looks around the room for something to distract herself.
A stack of canvases sit upright in a corner; from the plain wooden frames, she knows Anna had framed these herself. There was no intention to put them up either, not even in her own room. Elsa's chest hurts more and more as she takes each one out and realizes they all depicted her: oil, watercolour, tempera, charcoal sketches; by the beach, in her ice palace, in the woods, in the garden. Anna only ever drew her sister. Nothing else.
Amidst the stack paintings, Elsa finds the picture of her by the fountain, and she places it by the nude painting. Another royal portrait of Elsa hangs over the fireplace, but from the level of detail crafted into its every brushstroke, it looks like another one of Anna's creations. Her hair had been tied into its usual neat braid around her crown, and her chin lifted in a regal posture. From the position of the painting in front of Anna's bed, it was likely her sister saw it every night before she drifted away to sleep.
Elsa slumps into the bed and runs her fingers over the pillows, coming away with strands of red hair and the occasional blonde. She pulls the blanket to her face and her eyes brim with tears as she inhales. A sob escapes her lips; she looks up at the walls and sighs.
"Please be alright, Anna," she pleads with the ceiling, "Forgive me for letting you go."
Elsa stares at the three paintings on Anna's wall: the royal coronation portrait, the oil painting of her in the summer dress, and the nude portrait of her in the library.
Queen, Sister, Lover.
She dozes off amidst the tangle of sheets and blankets, still unsure of which one she likes the best.