Elsa and Rapunzel were sitting on the grassy bank by the lake.

Rapunzel had her heavy parchment Bible opened in her lap. She had marked several places in the Bible with different colored silk ribbons. Now, she opened one place and read: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Elsa sat silent. Inside of her, a voice complained, no, it isn't true, it's a lie. An ache was beginning to throb somewhere in her chest.

"What do you think?" asked Rapunzel.

Elsa fixed her eyes on the water, willing herself not to betray what she was feeling. "Let's read another verse."

Rapunzel's green eyes flickered but she didn't argue, opening her Bible to another place that was marked by a purple ribbon.

"For you made all the innermost parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex."

The ache increased.

Elsa reached for the Bible and closed it deliberately, taking care not to slam it shut, but wishing she could. "Well, I've read it."

"Do you believe it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't believe that you were made by a creator?"

"Well..." Elsa held out her hands, which were beginning to show flakes of frost, as they always did when anger began to rise in her. "You think God made me like this?"

"Why not?"

"It makes me dangerous."

Rapunzel smiled a little. "We're all dangerous."

"What do you mean?"

"With one word, I can hurt Eugene worse than anybody in the world. I am frightened sometimes of that power." Rapunzel shivered. "With the stroke of my quill, I can create a law and change the lives of the people in my kingdom. That's frightening too."

"Oh believe me, I know that," said Elsa. Her thoughts flitted for a moment to all the work she had, letters to read, laws to draft, people to meet with and here she was, reading the Bible in the middle of the day. Her parents would probably disapprove.

"Queen Elsa, are you listening to me? We all have tremendous power to hurt and to heal. The creator made everybody like that."

"And you think that's a good thing?"

"I think it makes them wonderfully complex."

Elsa reached into her pocket for her gloves and began to tug them on. "Being able to freeze things isn't wonderfully complex. I've always hated it. My parents hated it too. I nearly froze Anna's heart when she was little."

She didn't mention that she nearly froze Anna's heart a month ago because that was too painful to speak of.

Rapunzel pulled one purple strand of silk out of the Bible and began to wind it around her fingers. "Did your parents punish you or blame you?"

"No..." Elsa began to say but then thought about how she had cried herself to sleep for a week after they had decided that she would study, play and take her meals in her room. It had felt like she was being punished for some terrible crime.

"They didn't mean for me to feel punished," she said. "But that's how I felt when they closed that door. And hopelessly wrong somehow like...like God had made a mistake in making me like that."

"And you still feel that way now."

Elsa felt tears rising. "I don't know. Maybe."

Rapunzel let out a heavy breath. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Why you didn't come out of your room when your parents were gone."

Elsa stood quickly. "You make them sound like my jailers. But I had a choice. I could have snuck out of my room a thousand times even while they were alive. I didn't because I chose not to. And I didn't come out after the funeral because I chose not to."

"Why not?"

"Because..."Elsa was struggling to form the words. "I couldn't have risked Anna's safety to please myself."

Rapunzel looked indignant. "Because you didn't think you were important. Or your happiness."

"No!" Elsa cried. "Because I loved her." She wiped her eyes hastily and rose. "I think we're finished for today. I have plenty of work to do and I'm sure that you have your book to write and your art."

Rapunzel sighed. "As you wish." She was going to say more but Elsa was already walking away rapidly, leaving a trail of ice behind her over the fresh green grass.

Rapunzel frowned as she pulled two more silk ribbons out of the Bible, her hands forming a delicate silk braid as she thought.

This was difficult, more difficult than she had anticipated. Elsa stood at a distance from the decisions in her past, shielding herself from the pain that they had caused. Rapunzel wished that there was some way to bring her close enough to those memories at least once, just enough to bring her to the realization that one's perception of events could be completely wrong. It was possible to convince yourself that you had acted out of love when really your motives had been much more complicated. All you had to do was truly see yourself in the past in order to understand yourself in the present. If only one could travel to the past...

She gasped. She had just had an excellent idea.

All the scriptures cited here come from the NIV Bible. I realize that most likely Elsa and Rapunzel would not be using an NIV :) But I ask you to suspend your belief for a while. Let's assume that they could.