Frozen Together Chapter 8
As the months stretched into years, Elsa slowly gained a small measure of mastery over her fears. It wasn't much, but any progress at all was an improvement that both she and her sister desperately needed.
The gates of the palace remained closed. But within that palace, Elsa could be found almost anywhere, at any time of the day. She almost always ate with Anna in the informal dining room; there were no more trays brought up to her room at mealtimes. During the day, she could usually be found gazing apprehensively out the partially-curtained windows at the kingdom that would soon be hers, or curled up on a couch in the library with a book. She also spent a few hours a day on her long-neglected education, as provided by a select handful of tutors who had been sworn to secrecy and cautioned not to get alarmed if the weather indoors took a sudden turn for the worse.
Anna had to attend the first few of those tutoring sessions, to reassure Elsa in case her fear of hurting someone manifested itself. Elsa hadn't spent time with strangers since she was seven years old; no one knew how she'd react to an unfamiliar person's unfamiliar ways. Her first tutor, an elderly lady who taught history, was taken aback by the sight of her new pupil accompanied by a younger sister dressed for extreme winter weather. Anna's precautionary clothing turned out to be unnecessary that time. Still, it was fortunate that the tutor was slightly nearsighted; she didn't notice how the floor around Elsa's chair, and the legs of the chair, were eventually coated in half an inch of ice.
Soon, the visits from the tutors became commonplace. Elsa grew a little bit confident in her ability to keep herself under control, to the point where she was willing to learn royal etiquette and the principles of rulership from a visiting duchess. That was a critical test, because no noblewoman would ever swear an oath to keep secrets. But Elsa passed the test; the duchess suspected nothing.
Anna decided that her sister needed new horizons to conquer. Her next challenge would be a visit from a seamstress, to be measured for some nice new clothing.
"Why go to all that effort when no one will ever see me wearing it?" Elsa asked sadly. "I mean, I like new clothes as much as any girl, but what's the point?"
"Your coronation is less than a year away," Anna reminded her. "You'll have to have all kinds of new outfits for the ceremony, the balls, the dinners, the diplomatic meetings, and who knows what else! You might as well get used to being measured and fitted now, instead of waiting until the last minute. Face it – getting measured is a little more personal than sitting in a chair and listening to Frau Unibrau reciting all our ancestors, from our parents back to Adam and Eve.
"And I'll be honest, Elsa. I'm sick of seeing you in that blue dress every day. You need something different to wear!"
When the seamstress arrived, she was briefed by Kai and Gerda in what to expect, and she signed the usual non-disclosure agreement. Elsa waited in her room, getting nervous. Anna decided to stay close to her, and it was a wise decision. She spent most of the measuring session just behind her older sister, with one reassuring hand on her shoulder and the other on her arm, while Elsa stood as rigid as an ice sculpture. It made the seamstress' work a little more difficult, but the alternative probably would have been much worse.
When the package with the new dresses arrived, Anna was a lot more excited about it than Elsa was. The future queen eventually got into the spirit of things, but it wasn't a natural response. It took effort to let herself relax and feel anything like a strong emotion, even something as simple as delight in a new dress.
Anna's next project for her sister didn't go quite so smoothly. There was one room in the house that Elsa steadfastly refused to enter. Anna knew that had to change.
"Once you're the queen, there will have to be balls," she said firmly. "Balls are held in a ballroom. If the new Queen won't even go into the ballroom... that will be bad. I know you have bad memories of that place, but –"
"No, you don't know," Elsa retorted. "You cannot imagine what that memory does to me! That memory has affected everything I've said and done for the past twelve years. I can't just put it down and let it go. It's not that easy, Anna."
"Okay, then how about if you –"
"No, Anna!"
Anna tried everything she could think of. She even resorted to putting a small dish of chocolates in the middle of the ballroom floor. When Elsa saw what she'd done, she just rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Anna? You're so obvious, you're pathetic!" Within half an hour, the dish was gone. Anna suspected that Elsa had asked Gerda to get it for her.
A few nights later, Anna had to use the powder room. As she was returning to her own room, she thought she saw a light downstairs. There shouldn't be any lights there at this time of night. She crept down the great staircase to investigate.
She stopped at the doorway to the ballroom. Elsa was sitting in the middle of the floor, with one candle next to her. She looked like she'd been crying. As Anna watched, she stretched out her hand and made a shining ball of ice appear just above her palm. It hovered in mid-air for a few seconds; then it shot upwards and burst near the ceiling like a sparkling white firework. Elsa watched the gleaming snowflakes float down all around her, then hid her face in her hands and sobbed. But she made no move to leave the ballroom. After a few more seconds, Anna left her and went back to bed.
At breakfast the next morning, she quietly said to her older sister, "If I'd been watching you last night, I would have thought you were very brave. Of course, that's if I'd been watching you." Elsa said nothing, and Anna didn't mention it again.
Anna slowly led her sister out of her self-imposed prison, one small step at a time over the space of three years, but there was one step that Elsa flatly refused to take. She would not set foot outside the palace.
"When all the guests show up for the coronation, are you magically going to be used to having crowds around, Elsa? You don't have to go very far! Just start getting used to having a bunch of people around. They won't be hostile – they'll be thrilled to see their future queen!"
"Anna, I can't! Just one stray snowflake, and it's all over for me! They'd think I'm a witch, and I'd be their ex-queen, as quick as that!" She snapped her fingers; a puff of snowflakes flew off her fingertips. Anna applied all her persuasive ways, but Elsa would not budge. When the snow began falling around them, Anna realized she'd pushed too hard, and backed off. After a few more such scenes, Anna gave up. She'd try to appreciate her sister for who she was and what she could do, and not focus on who she wasn't and what she couldn't do.