A/N: I apologize for the wait, I came down with Mono and life happened, I didn't have a lot of time or energy to write.
Anyway, chapter 5 is here now, you'll get a tiny peak in to Elsa's past in this one, so enjoy :)
Elsa's mind stopped in its tracks. She felt as uncomfortable as a fish out of water, and was trying just as hard to breathe. Wait, what?
"I don't think-"
Anna ever so innocently placed her hands behind her back and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. "Oh come on Elsa, it'll be fun."
Being at the top of the food chain, the shopkeeper didn't know how to lose fights. And right now, she was siphoning all of her energy into just staying on her feet. Hearing her named spoken by Anna sent all kinds of bizarre thrills through her body. She tried and failed to ignore them.
The woman feigned indifference as best she could, but looked about as out of her element as a Jester given a crown. "No."
The red head stepped forward. "Just a short one."
Elsa lost her resolved like sand slipping through her fingers. She looked down, as if to find it upon the floorboards. "Fine."
Weak. You're weak. It's just a walk, that's all. You know very well it's more than that.
From Anna came a smile so bright it nearly lit up the dim room. "Great! Let's go!" She held her arm out, elbow at a right angle so they might walk arm in arm. Elsa suppressed her urgent desire to take the girl's arm and began towards the door, not even acknowledging the offer.
Greatly elated by her victory, Anna didn't get deterred by Elsa's apparent disinterest. Instead, she happily followed the pale women into the bath of moonlight waiting outside.
They were walking together. Well, it was more like Elsa briskly walking and Anna following her. The red head honestly never thought this far ahead. She didn't really know what to say, so she said the first thing that came to mind.
"I'm still dreaming about you."
A stride was broken by fleetingly stiffened muscles. "I'm sorry."
A warm, infectious grin slithered on to the strawberry blonde's face. "They're good dreams now."
This got Elsa's attention.
"No- not uh, not like that, like, just, um... not bad ones?"
Blue eyes pierced Anna's for several long, uncomfortable seconds. Her face was beat red and she desperately wished that Kristoff's ice stall was open.
After a silent buildup, no climax emerged. Elsa looked in front of herself, once again moving.
Anna, on the other hand, was suffocating. She had efficiently made the stroll so awkward. Why would I tell her that first? If at all. It just makes me sound creepy! To be fair, she's kinda creepy, too. Taking a deep breath of air that felt like clay in her lungs, the girl changed the topic. "So, um, where are you from? I mean before here, obviously. You've only been here for like five years, so where'd you live before here?"
Elsa stared at Anna, it felt like she was trying and succeeding to yank something out from inside of the girl. The silence stretched on far longer than its natural life. "It doesn't matter."
"Oh, um, okay. Well, how about your parents? I mean, do you have family?" The red head had to pant a little to catch her breath. This walk was wearing her out. Which was odd, considering she usually had copious amounts of stray energy that could keep her going for days on end.
Once again, Anna fell under the perfect predator's gaze, cool and threatening, calm but powerful. Elsa looked away again, this time closing her eyes and concentrating. "Will you stop asking questions?" The tone of voice indicated that it was more a statement than question.
"Are you okay? I didn't mean to-"
"Anna, quiet. You asked me on a stroll, not for a conversation."
The red head stared dumbly at the shopkeeper. She inhaled as if to say something, but thought better of it and kept to herself. This walk was turning out to be more stressful than she was hoping for... by a long shot.
Elsa focused her mind on putting one leg in front of the other. Having Anna so close to her and talking to her wasn't helping her situation. The beast that was her hunger was waking up, and the girl's voice only served to agitate it farther. And that damned thumping of her heart. The enticing rush of blood through her veins was loud and clear for Elsa.
On top of all this, she was frantically trying to undermine her impetuous thoughts about Anna. But they were still leaking in to her mind, slithering through the cracks like snakes.
Elsa glanced over, only to have her eyes trace the line of Anna's jugular, saliva almost dripping from her mouth, and teeth sharpened. She was pulled in as if by gravity, and she had to learn to fly to avoid succumbing to her desires.
The two journeyed in silence together for nearly half of an hour. They found themselves in the park. Dark-swept trees lumbered over them like shadowy beings, watching their every move, spiderwebs of branches threatening to snatch them up. The grass looked almost blue in the light, their surroundings blurred by darkness, overtaken by the unnatural veil of night. No birds chirped, no squirrels ran about collecting nuts, no people enjoyed the scenery. It was just them and silence, not even light was brave enough stay.
They came across a lonesome bench, and the red head found the power to talk. "I think I need to rest, can we stop?"
Elsa simply nodded and stood still. Anna, on the other hand, collapsed into the bench with little grace. "Phew!" She waited a few moments. "Aren't you going to sit?"
With steadfast eye contact, the strange woman asserted "I'm fine right here."
Anna mentally pulled back. "Okay..."
They marinated in the gloomy silence of the park. The red head had the chilling feeling that she was game ready to hunted for sport. She shivered at the thought.
There's something about Elsa, Anna mused as the woman in question stared into the blackened sea, visible only by a ghoulish silhouette. She acts tough, but on the inside seems... kind. She likes my company, but tries everything to avoid it. What is she hiding? Considering the juxtaposition Elsa's secret created to her friendly nature, Anna determined that whatever it is, it must be dreadful enough to permanently damage someone.
She wasn't sure she wanted the answer anymore.
After several minutes of silence, a quiet, soothing voice finally made its way out. "What about your parents?" Elsa was sure she knew the answer, she had seen Anna's living situation several times. She told herself to leave it alone, that the less she knows of Anna the better for both of them.
But like a man bested in combat, she caved. Curiosity was better at swordplay.
Anna's mouth hung agape. Did she really just ask that? She quickly thought about how to answer, what to say. The truth. Say the truth.
She inhaled sharply, expectant blue eyes on her. "I... they passed." She grabbed the necklace, drawing from it what she could, and looked down. "Two years ago. It was a shipwreck, just a few days' time off the coast." Anna felt weight in her throat, the memories brought up were painful.
Elsa took half a step forward, but held herself back. She distanced herself slightly, and in an all too understanding tone, she whispered "I'm sorry."
Anna simply nodded and swallowed her sadness. "Me too," she rasped.
"My," the pale woman started tentatively, "my parents passed, too. Many years ago."
The red head stood up and attempted to step closer. Elsa kept her distance. "Elsa, I... what happened?"
The shopkeeper flashed back, but kept quiet.
Elsa silently filed in to a mud hut on the outskirts of town. A town in the kingdom now known as The Southern Isles. It was dark and smelled of sweat and death. The stench hung like a looming cloud in the sky.
On a rat infested straw bed laid an old, wrinkled woman, shivering and covered in a layer of sweat. A fire burned through its last moments in the middle of the floor, providing light with an orange filter around the home.
Elsa walked up to the woman, who's breaths were shallow and sparse. With each gasp for air came the rumbling of mucus from within the woman's lungs, a sickening wheezing infecting the scene.
"Mother," the younger of the two said. She reached her hand out to stroke straw-like hair glued together with clumps of blood and dirt.
The woman turned slightly, her eyes already starting to glaze over. Out of her throat came a pained voice, barely audible. "My dear Elsa, you haven't aged a day."
Elsa grabbed her mother's hand. A lump sat in her throat and salty despair leaked down her cheeks. "Shh, rest, mother. You needn't speak."
Entering a coughing fit, the sickly lady curled up and hacked up several rounds of blood and mucus, spraying it across the room, staining her daughter's dress with her ailment.
Waiting for the coughs to subside, Elsa calmly wiped herself off with her hands and held her family closer. "I brought something to help. It'll take away your pain."
"No-no m-magic," the woman rasped.
"But it will help! It will make you stop hurting!"
The dying woman pushed her finger up against her pale daughter's lips and quietly assured "Shhhh."
Elsa bit down tears, closing her eyes and beginning to sob. She grabbed her mother's hand and held it against her chest, so she might bring it closer to her heart, as if to use her own life force to save her. "Mother..." She sniffled, the pain already becoming all too real.
"You h-haven't a-aged a d-d-day," the deteriorating woman repeated.
"You knew I wouldn't, mother. You knew the price."
The woman gently grasped the back of her offspring's head and looked in to her eyes. Elsa found herself staring face to face with death himself.
The crushing knowledge that he could never touch her weighed on Elsa's mind.
With her last, fighting breath, Elsa's last remaining parent whispered "I love you, Elsa."
All too quickly, the color and what little life was left in the older one's eyes drained out, leaving nothing but barren, gray fields. The body went limp, and Elsa pulled it close, hugging it with all her mite. She felt like she could give her own immortality to the woman, save her, return the favor. But it was a cruel illusion of the gods, tricking her in to hope, never intent on satisfying. She had lost her father just a week before to the same mysterious illness, she couldn't handle losing someone else.
"Mother! Mother! No! ...I-I love y-you, too." Elsa sobbed over the body, holding it close and repeating as many healing spells as she could remember. But they were weak, useful against minor injuries, but nothing more. She could never possess enough power to reverse death. Through her anguish, Elsa came to one conclusion, channeling all of her grief in to determination. From that day forth, she swore she'd only feed off of members of one family: the royal family of The Southern Isles.
Finally, the shopkeeper looked up. She practically just mouthed "sickness."
"Do you um, do you want to talk about it?" Anna did not know how thin the ice beneath her was, she just hoped it wouldn't break.
Elsa hugged herself. "We should get back."
Anna nodded. They walked in silence back to the curiosity shop.
When they arrived, the pale woman started in the door, and the red head coerced enough bravery into her diaphragm to talk. "We should do that again. It was.. fun- well, not fun because we talked about our dead parents, just... fun. I'm gonna stop talking."
Elsa paused momentarily in the doorway, then shut the portal behind herself without a single word. Considering the woman's normal demeanor, Anna took the silence as agreement and smiled.
Elsa waited until she was sure her acquaintance was asleep, then departed. It was finally time to eat.
"The gods have been good, m'lord. We should be arriving in Arendelle in two days' time."
Hans grinned at his captain's news. Revenge was getting closer, he could almost taste it's diabolical satisfaction in his mouth.
"Raise no flags, we will not be docking."
The captain of the ship raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"
Hans explained. "We can not let anyone know I'm here. You will drop anchor just out of sight of Arendelle's docks and I will row to shore at night. You will wait for me to return."
Confused but unquestioning, the sailor agreed. "Understood."