Nightmares

Since she was eight years old, Elsa had always had nightmares. It was something that she had accepted as a constant in her life. Intermittent, but constant. This was now something that everyone who was close to her knew.

When she had been small the nightmares had been about hitting Anna with her magic, freezing her. Later, she had terrifying dreams of her parents drowning, crying out to her as they were sucked under the water. Now her dreams were about Anna again, and the frozen face that stared back at her, lifeless in these dreams, was one she had seen personally. She had frozen her sister. Her sister had died, or almost died, Elsa wasn't sure, and only through her own act of love did she recover. In her dreams, Elsa always felt that acute moment of helplessness, of guilt, when she realized that she had killed her sister, and she could do nothing to save her. In her dreams and awake, Elsa was keenly aware her magic had only the power to kill not heal.

However Anna had not died, and so for a good year after their reconciliation she made a point of sleeping with Elsa. The nightmares weren't the only reason. She loved their nightly chats, when Elsa would recount amusing stories of the day only to fall off to sleep in mid-sentence. She loved hugging and holding her sister. She loved their long conversations about their parents, or their past, or their future together. She loved the mere proximity of the girl, now a woman, whom she had so desperately longed to be close to.

It made her feel valuable, something Anna needed to be, when she could gently shake Elsa awake as soon as she heard her whimpering in her sleep. But if Elsa had a particularly bad dream, and if Anna wasn't there to comfort her, perhaps having spent much of the evening with Kristoff and therefore retiring to her own bed, it was possible to find the top floor of the castle completely iced over, or snow drifts in the hall. When this happened Anna would break into Elsa's bedroom, the door was almost always frozen shut if she was in the grip of a terror, and wake her, and hold her, and calm her. It would take a while, but eventually Elsa would be herself again. Then she would disperse the ice and snow, she might even smile if Anna worked at it, and they could return to bed.

It was only after this had become more routine that Anna would wonder what Elsa had done before she could control her magic enough to reverse it. She had asked once, and the only response was a hastily muttered explanation that "the rugs do dry after a while." The thought of Elsa trapped in her frozen room, just waiting for it to thaw, enduring that slow damp process with no one to help her, or in the later years even just be with her, made Anna sick at heart.

All of this was information Anna had passed on to Carolina, once Anna had realized she was going to be the Queen's guest at night on a regular basis. This worked out well, the passing of the information anyway, if not the actual realizing that Fitz was staying the night. Instead of Anna waking Elsa from her nightmare, it was Carolina. Carolina would hold her. Carolina would comfort her. Carolina would come and get Anna if it had been a particularly vivid dream, so that Elsa could see her sister was alive, and warm, and whole. Carolina would give up her side of the bed, or at least some of the middle, if Elsa wanted Anna to remain with her. She would even do that if it was just that Anna wanted to spend more time with her sister.

All this is to say that it was quite a surprise when Elsa was the one awoken in the middle of the night by screaming.

"Get down!" Elsa heard someone yelling. And then she was jumped on. Elsa found her head pushed down into the bed, while the rest of her body was covered by her substantially larger and more weighty lover. Every time Elsa tried to twist from her vice-like hands, Carolina yelled, "Stay down!" and would only hold her more tightly. This uncomfortable position did pass eventually. At last Elsa felt Carolina's grip relax, and she managed to wiggle free. But Carolina was still trembling and jerking, whimpering in her sleep. And Elsa recognized it for what it was.

"Wake up, wake up," Elsa said as she gently held her and stroked her face. "Wake up. It's alright, you're only dreaming."

Carolina woke with a gasp and sat straight up. "Your legs," she said to Elsa, her voice harsh and hoarse. "Your legs." Then she began groping frantically at the bottom of the bed only stopping once she had found Elsa's legs and patted them all the way up to her torso.

"I'm fine." Elsa smiled and brushed the sweat-soaked hair from where it was covering Carolina's face. "You're fine." She picked up the trembling woman's hand and kissed it. "Do you know where you are?"

"No." Carolina's eyes darted back and forth. Then she added. "Inside."

"Yes, you're inside. You're in bed." Elsa raised an eyebrow and waited.

"Oh thank god, Elsa, you're alive," Carolina said at last. "You're not hurt."

"I'm fine." Elsa continued to stroke and comfort Carolina. "You had a nightmare."

"I did." Carolina nodded in agreement. She was still breathing hard. Then she sat up and ran a hand through her hair. "I truly did."

"Can I get you something, water?" When Carolina nodded Elsa reached to her bedside and found the glass she kept there. "Here."

Carolina drank with loud slurping gulps. "It's cold," she said, indicating the water.

"You're welcome," Elsa said, and then snuggled up against her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Carolina nodded and then started slowly, unsurely. "We were … at sea. You were there. God, it was so real."

Elsa understood.

"We were in a battle … we were on deck, in a boarding party … and you weren't just you, you were …. well, you were hit by canon fire. You ..." Carolina's voice dropped to a whisper, "you lost your legs. There was so much blood; I tried to stop it. But … with that injury … there's nothing you can …" Her shoulder's sagged. "And usually, at least it's fast. But this time it wasn't. You kept trying to get up. You kept trying, and falling … trying and falling, and I couldn't do anything." She looked up at Elsa. "It was so real."

Elsa was rubbing her back, trying to soothe the demons of memory. "You've seen that, I guess. That sort of thing."

"Oh yes," Carolina said. "That and worse, many times. And that particular …. He was just a boy, fourteen, hadn't been at sea long. He was three maybe four steps in front of me. He didn't even cry out. He just fell. He said, 'I'm hit,' and then he was dead. He was lucky really. There are many more terrible ways to die in a battle. But there was something about that … the way his blood was everywhere … the way he was standing and then he wasn't. The sound the ball makes when it hits the deck. The smell. The smell of so much blood. It seems I can't forget it."

Elsa hummed in agreement. She knew nothing of the horrors of battle, but she understood the horrors of a nightmare. "Come here," she said giving a gentle tug on Carolina's shoulders, pulling her even closer. "I know the perfect thing for nightmares."

"I am yours," Carolina whispered, resting her head on Elsa's chest, listening to the beat of her heart.

"I learned it from a master … a master nightmare comforter."

"Princess Anna of Arendelle," Carolina murmured. She was so sure she didn't even consider it a guess.

"No, actually, a queen of my acquaintance," Elsa continued stroking Carolina's hair as she moved to a slightly more upright positions. "My mother." And she kissed her lover tenderly on the top of her head.

Then Elsa began to quietly sing a lullaby. Carolina's breath softened and evened out, and the tension in her body seeped away into the relaxed pose of sleep. Elsa kept on singing for quite a while after she thought Carolina might be sleeping. She found it oddly comforting herself. She thought that perhaps this was one of the things that had made the previous fourteen years worth it … that she knew the right thing to do.