Chapter 1 - 2001, November 2
The little girls' footsteps echoed throughout the lightless castle as they made their way down to the ballroom, hand in hand. Anna was excitedly dragging along her older sister as she ran, barely able to contain her giggles and not wake up their parents or anyone else in the castle
"Come on, come on, come on," Anna excitedly repeated, to which Elsa kept replying with shushes but to no avail.
Soon they made it to the ballroom's door and barged it open, running into the expansive room laughing almost out loud in their excitement. After Elsa shut the door closed, Anna continued to hold on to Elsa's hand as they ran to the middle of the room, very eager to see one of her favorite things in the world: her sister's magic.
"Do the magic, do the magic!"
And with a smile and without a word, Elsa began to wave her arms around, causing frost to start forming and circling until they had formed a little snowball levitating above Elsa's hands, as Anna stared in great awe.
"Ready?" Elsa asked, getting an eager nod back from her sister.
With that, she then spread her arms wide into the air, causing the snowball to fly up to the ceiling, and explode into a bright cloud of snow that began falling around in the room.
Elsa watched with a big grin on her face as Anna danced around with joyful squeals, her arms spread up in the air hoping to catch the snow. "This is amazing!" she shouted out, regardless of the danger of someone hearing them and finding out that they were still awake.
"Hmm?" Maria said.
"What hmm? I didn't say a thing." Elias replied.
"No, uh...I mean, did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Shush."
Elias then stopped his rapid typing for a moment and began listening intently, despite the fact that he was pretty sure no one else was awake.
"I don't hear a thing." Elias said.
"Just keep quiet, we might hear it again."
They then did so for another moment, sitting there staring at nothing for at least five seconds more until suddenly, they heard the faint sound of solidifying ice, followed by 20 seconds of faint high-pitched giggling and laughing.
"Elsa." Elias only said before he stood up.
"Hey, about Elsa..." Maria said as she then stood up too, as Elias began to leave the room. "About her...magic, have you found anything curious that could help us about it?"
"Hmm? Well, actually, that was kind of the reason why I went here at this time of night. Besides, when you have bad insomnia, it's one way to use up time." Elias said as he opened the door.
"Figures. But did you find anything?" Maria then asked as they both exited the room.
"Well, there was this illegal settlement in north Arendelle. Have you heard of the news about it? Honestly, I just found out about it moments ago. Of all the happenings in this kingdom, I'm kind of surprised I didn't find out about it sooner." Elias said, his voice echoing in the hallways.
"Oh, that? It's been kind of in the news for three days already. It's a shantytown for magical people, and apparently their leader is some old man from Russia, and they've been into...well, fights with the police."
"A shantytown, you say? Wow, I never knew Arendelle was a third world country." Elias chuckled.
"Pfft." Maria said as they made their way down the stairs.
"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" the faint voice of Elsa then echoed up the stairway as they were going down.
"I...ah...what?" Elias then said.
"I wuv you Olaf!" the faint voice of Anna followed.
Elias stared at his wife with a confused look on his face. Maria, not knowing what to say, simply shrugged her arms, and they continued climbing down. As they slowly walked their way down from the topmost floor where they came from, more giggles and laughs from Anna and Elsa began to echo around in the corridors, all the way to the fifth floor where they currently were right now.
After about two minutes later of walking down, they finally made it down to the bottom floor, only for Maria to suddenly stop before they headed to the ballroom where the girls seemed to be playing in.
"Hey, why don't we just get a drink first? It's midnight, and I'm thirsty," she said as she stretched her arms out, yawning.
Elias took five seconds to reply, "Alright."
It were times like these that Elsa felt her powers, strange as they were, were truly a gift, and that there's no more better way of using it other than to make people happy, especially her little sister Anna. There Anna was at a corner of the ballroom, still dancing along with Olaf the inanimate snowman while Elsa was busy making a big snow slide for them to start sliding down upon.
Since the floor was completely covered in ice, Anna began skidding on the ice in Elsa's direction while still in Olaf's arms, who was sliding along with her. Giggling as she slid past Elsa into another corner of the room, she made a funny face as she said "Wheeeeee!"
Elsa chuckled as she watched Anna slide out of control into a wall at a comically slow speed, causing her to fall over and making Olaf tumble and crumble into snowman pieces.
"Hey, Anna, come on! Let's go slide down this one!" Elsa called out as she finished her slide, and quickly made a cushioning pile of snow at the end. Anna quickly began running towards Elsa, and Elsa quickly made a crude stair for them to climb on top of the slide.
"Come on!" Anna said, very much in a hurry as she began climbing up. Elsa followed after a short while.
When they made it to the top, Elsa then sat at the very beginning of the slide, and took Anna's hand. "Come on, sit on my lap, then let's slide down!"
Without a word, Anna cannonballed herself into Elsa's lap, causing Elsa to gasp just for a moment.
"Alright then, you ready?"
"Yeah!"
And with a slight push, the two began sliding quickly down the ten-foot slide, with Anna's loud "WHEE!" echoing all over the ballroom.
"WHEEEEEE!" Anna's voice could be heard in the pantry.
Elias and Maria, with a glass of water in their hands, stared at each other, before Elias began shaking his head.
When Anna and Elsa made it to the bottom of the slide, Anna jumped and flew off, landing back-first into the cushion that Elsa made. Almost immediately, Anna began jumping around, to which Elsa began conjuring piles of snow that would catch her as Anna jumped. "Hang on!" Elsa called out as Anna continued jumping, higher and higher and higher until it became even taller than the slide.
"Catch me!"
Elsa kept making the piles of snow. It really were times like these that she felt the happiest. Ever since she was born, she had been told that she was born...different. She never felt hot nor cold. People literally felt cold around her, and her skin was chilly to the touch, no matter how hot it got wherever she was. She was told she was unusual. But why?
Little did she know how it would soon end up becoming a full blown ability to manipulate snow and ice. It started innocently enough at first. A few months ago during summer, she was locked up in her room doing nothing but reading her upcoming school-year's books. No one was around. Elias was traveling to Oslo for two days to discuss a trade agreement with Norway. Maria was busy organizing and managing all of Elias' paperwork and scheduling, being essentially her husband's secretary. Anna was all the way downstairs at the kitchen, too busy begging chocolate from the chefs to do anything else. And Elsa felt that it was too hot in her room.
So she thought I wish it snowed in my room, and as a joke, she closed her eyes and started thinking really hard, please let it snow in my room.
When she opened her eyes, she could only gasp in shock when she saw the snow begin to fall from the ceiling and unto her head and her book, just like magic.
Later she showed this to Anna, who then immediately insisted that they use it to play. And so secretly, they began playing in their room with the snow that Elsa conjured. She started discovering that she could make snow come out from any of her body parts, though usually it came from her hands. She found out she could cover the floor in a layer of ice. She could make crude structures out of snow. Anna was often greatly amused by all the things that she would ask Elsa to make, like a snow castle or a snow version of themselves.
But though Elsa's control of her powers was still not refined enough, she was slowly learning how to control her powers through their play. She somewhat knew how to make the snow go away when they were done, but sometimes, the snow and ice she made just didn't disappear until it melted, leaving their room often wet.
But then one day she showed it to her father, who very much did not approve at all. She still remembered their conversation in his office, the day after she showed to him her powers in her room.
"Elsa. That is dangerous." Elias said very sternly.
"But we were just playing!" Elsa replied.
"I'm telling you, Elsa. You're a child. And now, you've...you've got magic. You don't know how to control it yet. What if somehow you accidentally end up hurting Anna with your powers?" Elias added, intimidating Elsa.
"B-but...how could I even do that?"
"At the very least, you might get her sick from the cold. But if it goes out of control, what if you, say, accidentally cause Anna to freeze to death? Or...or...or what if accidentally turn her into ice? Or just directly hit her with a blast of frost, or a sharp icicle?"
Elsa was cowering in fear of her father.
"You don't know what might accidentally happen when you use your powers. Don't use it."
"I-I won't, papa."
"And if other people find out about this...yyou're the one who's going to inherit the kingdom. You might even harm other people. What if you accidentally make a blizzard instead of just causing snow? And what if say, you don't know how to make it go away?"
"I-I won't do that."
"You shouldn't. Listen to me. Don't use it. Do you understand me?"
When she later told Anna about what happened, they instead mischievously agreed to do it behind their backs. And so their every-other-midnight ritual of going to the ballroom and playing in the snow began, although sometimes Elsa was too sleepy to get off her bed and go with Anna. Their playing had already got them in trouble once when they were caught by their mother playing, with Elias then finding out and lecturing Elsa yet again on the dangers of this kind of play.
But here she was yet again, playing secretly in the ballroom while Elias and Maria slept (or so she thought). Elsa thought, it made the two of them happy, and they weren't really in danger, so why was her father so hard on her?
Anna kept jumping up and Elsa continued catching her with increasingly taller piles of snow. "Again!" she said, almost fifteen feet in the air now, not far from the ceiling.
It was getting too high for Elsa. "Anna!" she cried out, only to be drowned out by repeated "woohoo!"s. "Slow down!" she said, trying to inch forward as she cast, trying to make sure she could make the platform catch Anna right.
But then she slipped.
Anna jumped off the final pile into an eighteen-feet drop.
"Anna!" she said as she extended an arm, accidentally causing a poweful blast of frost to burst from her hands and hit Anna right in the face.
Anna tumbled right down unto the snow slide, completely unconscious. A distraught Elsa was left to start shaking in fear and guilt of what she had just done.
"A-Anna?"
"Let's go?" Elias asked Maria, who had just finished her cup of water and put it right back down on the counter.
"What in God's name are Elsa and Anna doing anyway?" Maria then said.
"I've already told her to stop playing with her ice powers. She's not listening at all." Elias said with a grumble.
"Well, it's just playing." Maria raised an eyebrow. "What's the harm in them just playing around, except with snow powers?"
"MAMA! PAPA!" Elsa's screams suddenly filled the pantry.
Elias's heart skipped a beat while Maria suddenly gasped in surprise.
Without another word, they quickly ran out the pantry and straight towards the ballroom. When they finally got to the door, it was already being covered with frost. Elias tried to open the door, but it remained shut.
"ELSA!" Elias shouted out as he then rammed the door with his shoulder to no avail. "Maria, help me with this."
The two then rammed the door together, and the door finally gave way, to reveal a crying Elsa holding an unconscious Anna in her arms. Elsa looked at them with a look of sheer terror.
"Elsa...what have you done?" Elias said harshly. "This is getting out of hand!"
"I-i-it was an accident!" Elsa could only stammer as her parents ran to Anna's safety. "I-I'm sorry, Anna..."
Maria picked Anna up from Elsa's arms, breathing incredibly fast from worry. "She's ice cold."
Elias looked at Elsa with an angry look on his face, and quickly took a firm hold of her arm. "What did I tell you?" he whispered angrily, making Elsa cower in fear. Turning to Maria, he then said,
"Maria, get the keys to any of our cars. Quick. I know where we have to go."