The Sky Is Awake

VII. Twenty Feet Of Fresh Powder

Elsa started drinking tea when she was twelve years old, around the same time her parents began training her in alcohol. After all, a royal who couldn't hold their liquor would not be a very wise aristocrat at all. And Elsa was the heir.

But she hated everything about it, from the thick aroma to the pungent flavour burning down her throat. Worse, she was terrified of the way its warm fuzz made her feel like there wasn't a single thing in the world to worry about. Her nervous fingers froze countless champagne flutes, and even when they didn't she imagined they formed tiny icicles in her bloodstream. That was the year she had been the worst to Anna, even though her sister had always been so excited to see her at the dinner table.

"Simply pretend," her mother told her after a particularly bad night. Elsa had barely held out until Anna ran from the dinner hall in her usual fashion, still cramming dessert into her mouth. She spent a lot of time with her new horse back then, but Elsa didn't have it in her to think about anything more than the storming migraines that pushed her restraint with each meal.

The moment the doors closed behind her sister, Elsa's glass shattered and the entire tablecloth turned to running sleet as she exhaled shakily against the pounding throb behind her eye.

Her parents had looked at each other with the same suppressed disappointment Elsa wished so badly not to be the cause of.

Her father half-rose from his seat, but gave up when he saw how strained Elsa's control already was. "Perhaps it's too early," he suggested quietly.

The queen didn't say anything. Instead, she knelt down by her daughter's side. "Don't touch me," Elsa started automatically, her eyes red. "Please… I don't want to-"

"You would never hurt us, Elsa," the queen said. "You couldn't."

"No! Please – I can't think properly and-"

"Why must that be such a terrible thing?"

Elsa stopped and for one moment, the ache faded into the background as she stared into her mother's sad eyes.

The queen laid a hand on her knee. "Simply pretend."

The spilt wine had stained her skirt in patches of crimson butterflies. She wondered what Anna was doing right now. She wished she could run out and join her.

"Pretend that you are drinking tea."

"I… Mother, I don't know what tea tastes like."

"Then you'll simply have to believe me when I say it tastes like a sunny afternoon."

Elsa opened her mouth, but her mother smoothed a hand over her hair and shushed her like a child. "A cup of tea tastes like your favourite fairy tale. It smells of forgiving and forgetting, and when you drink to its bottom, you can read all the choices you never knew you had."

She'd closed her eyes then, but she still felt the light kiss on her temple, right above the throbbing pain. "I'm sorry, Elsa," her mother sighed. "Simply pretend that you don't have to pretend at all."

OoOoO

A scrabbling noise shook Elsa from her reverie. Blinking, she looked up from the bottom of her cup and the soft glare of the midday sun shone upon her face. The thick tome on her lap rested open at a fable she was too old to be reading while a ledger of Arendelle's latest accounts lay at her feet, unopened. Elsa averted her eyes in guilt.

"Oh," she breathed in surprise.

There was a black cat on the roof beyond her window. Looking at it, Elsa realised she and Anna used to chase a cat just like this one. Anna would follow it up pipes and through fences, and Elsa wouldn't be able to keep up. She would always wait at the bottom, laughing and calling, just in case Anna fell. But she was always fine… except for that ni-

Meow.

The cat was still in the same spot, pawing at the burgundy tiles. "Be careful," Elsa murmured.

The huge, arching window was the only thing Elsa liked about her room. At times it was torture, but she would never give up her view of the palace grounds and the kingdom beyond the gates. Whenever Anna played in the courtyard, or when fireworks bloomed above the village, Elsa watched from the ledge with her head against the glass, and sometimes she simply pretended.

The cat looked back at her.

"Are you lost, little guy?"

It wasn't especially little, in truth. Elsa hadn't seen more than birds from her window for a long time. She'd never kept a pet in this room.

The cat shuffled on the spot, looking around its feet. Every cat Elsa had seen seemed comfortable with heights, and she wondered what gave this particular one pause when it finally took one careful step-

And she watched in horror as its hind legs buckled and it lost grip and rolled down the tiles, yowling, claws scrabbling– and the edge slid closer–

Elsa could hear the ocean in her ears.

The cat lay shocked in its cradle of snow. Then the cold startled it lucid. It hastily twisted and found purchase, clambered clumsily to higher tiles.

The snow began to run.

The window was frosted where Elsa had slammed her hands to the glass.

Catch me…!

The cat limped to the middle of the roof, sat down and shivered. Elsa held her hands to her chest. The cat called out, scratched nervously at the tiles. It was hurt; she knew it was… and now she desperately needed to know that she hadn't made it worse.

But the tiles were slick with dew and she'd never, not once, opened her huge windows. And the drop…

She opened her mouth to call for someone, but fell short when she realised she didn't know how to.

The cat whimpered.

Click.

Elsa's eyes widened. She stared at her own fingers and the brass latch underneath – released.

Something swelled within her like a growing wave. For just one second, Elsa wondered if this was what it felt like to be free. To find out that something so small and simple could hold back so much.

The hinges squeaked. The cat jumped. Elsa froze.

Then it looked at her, right in the eyes, and the icy shores within her melted.

"Okay," she whispered. She carefully raised her knee to the ledge, pushing the glass pane open. It was heavy. It struck her that these windows were not meant to be opened for a very good reason.

The wind and the sounds of the outside world blew in to meet her. She could see most of Arendelle from here, just like she had for ten years, only this time she could feel the fresh breeze in her hair.

This was completely insane.

"Okay," Elsa breathed again. She was completely on the ledge now. The cat's tail stood rigid. "Um… hang on. I'm going to… oh goodness."

She didn't know where to put her feet. Should she take her slippers off? How much snow could she conjure in sickening freefall? She wished she were more like Anna.

Elsa tried to pry one white-knuckled hand from the sill, extended it as much as she dared. "C-Come here," she said, but her voice was too small and the rest of the world too big. She swallowed. She should have called for someone.

"It's okay… I won't hurt you. I-I know that's hard to believe."

If she fell, would Anna have to learn to drink wine?

With a deep breath, Elsa lowered herself to one knee. The tiles glowed warm and it was all she could do to keep it that way. The cat dragged itself one step back and let out a thin cry. It reminded Elsa of how Anna used to hide behind her when Papa's guests visited.

Simply pretend.

Slowly, she took her other hand off the window. She gazed into the cat's wary eyes, tried not to look anywhere else, and smiled. "You're okay. I got you."

The cat didn't move. The last trickle of melted snow sloughed over the roof edge. Elsa never heard it hit the courtyard far below. She didn't hear much of anything at all, because the cat took one slow step towards her – and everything after that just… happened.

It started with a flash of green swooping into the corner of her vision.

"Found you!"

"An-"

MEO-

"You're a fast muffin! Wait- ow, not the hair-"

"An-"

–snap.

"… Uh oooaahhh!"

"Anna?!"

She was frozen, petrified and awed and rapturous all at the same time – and she shouldn't be able to move but somehow she did-

And then there was a splitting CRASH of wood, terracotta, limbs and fur, and there was a hysterical cat in her arms and Anna was somewhere-

"… Anna?"

Silence.

"Anna?"

"... ooh, my funny bone feels really funny."

Her breath left her in a sigh of relief. And in its place, Elsa slowly felt it all settle in.

"Did you just-"

"Swing in on the window cleaner's platform and almost die? Nnn… yes. And ow."

"You could have fallen-"

"I know. Oh God, I know. That was like a crazy trust exercise with… wait. Elsa?"

The cat pushed a trembling nose into her neck and the cold wasn't supposed to bother Elsa, but this time a deep shiver ran through her soul.

Catch me!

Suddenly, strawberry blonde hair pooled over her face and blocked out the sky. A silver glint caught the sunlight but her sister's eyes were brighter. "I'm so sorry! I didn't see- can't believe- what are you doing out here?"

Elsa asked herself the same question. What was she doing here? Sprawled on upturned tiles and splintered wood with a cat on her chest. Queens didn't do things like that.

But Anna did.

"I… saw a cat," Elsa said.

Anna's eyes widened. "And you fell out of your window?"

"What? No, no, I didn't."

"But you're out here with me and I fall off things. Did fall off something."

Elsa turned her head away. The thin air and dying adrenaline put a dull, familiar fuzziness in her mind.

Why must that be such a terrible thing?

She whispered, "I was trying to catch you."

Anna looked at her strangely. Then she rubbed the back of her neck and let out one of her awkward laughs. "Well, you did."

Elsa sucked in a breath. She closed her eyes.

"You always did."

Her eyes flew open. She stared at Anna's shy smile. "What do you mean?"

Snorting, Anna waved her hand. "Oh, stop trying to be polite. Admit it: I'm a klutz. I was always a klutz. Maybe not so much anymore because I can totally put one foot in front of the other now – but, you know, before that…" She raised her fingers and counted them off. "I fell from trees, out of bed, off the bike, into the pond – and there was that time we-"

"Chased a cat," Elsa breathed. Then she started to laugh.

Because she remembered them now, all the times that had come before the last time. How she would pat that silly girl's head, tug her little nose and grin, You're okay, Anna. I got you.

Anna's eyes shone. "I told you," she whispered. "Crazy trust exercise."

A/N: I know that in the movie, Elsa's window doesn't look like it can be opened at all. In fact, a lot of the palace's structure is amateur imagination. But then again, so is everything else in this story. Just channel Kristoff and roll with it!

Continued in Anna's POV next chapter and hopefully answering all the questions Elsa was too flabbergasted to ask in this one.