A/N: Of the Frozen fic I've written so far, this was my vaguest idea. I almost wasn't going to post this drabble, but someone did request a followup to incendium, (chapter 3 of this collection) and no one else has actually left prompts.

I'd like to thank all the wonderful new followers, favorite, and the few reviewers. I don't usually ask for reviews, but I really would love to hear anything at all you have to say about these fics. Especially if you have favorite characters or prompts!

Incendium was based on Songs of Ice and Snow around chapter 8 or 9. Now Songs is at chapter 16, and you can see my guesses were wildly wrong in so many ways. So this chapter is hardly related to Songs anymore and is really just Elsa-loses-her-powers-fic.

Her only awareness was heat.

Fire.

Heat and dark.

Something's on fire.

Heat and dark and motionless.

I'm on fire.

Then something cool, blissfully cold and freezing and wonderful on her brow and voices murmuring in the distance.

And as her senses gradually sharpened, the heat became less pointed – not searing and scorching, but baking and stifling; bearable, but only just. She focused on the merciful freezing cold on her forehead and willed it to spread through the rest of her.

Was this how everyone else felt?

"—what do you mean you don't know—"

"Her majesty's injuries are not severe, but her, ah, condition—"

"—magic—"

"Yes, yes, her magic… is something beyond my control or expertise. Perhaps when Mr. Bjorgmann—"

"That is Sir Bjorgmann—"

"…yes. When the Royal Ice Harvester returns from the mountains, perhaps he will have some explanation—"

Elsa woke to her sister's voice. Her navy canopy drifted into focus. The moon cut a meager shaft of light into the room. She blinked, once, twice, eyes trying to adjust to even the dim night. The window was thrown wide, and a welcoming breeze floated in from the fjord. It cooled the compress on her forehead; she reached to her head and felt a damp cloth, no longer freezing but still cooler than the rest of her. [At the table was a bowl of water, remnants of ice floating lazily. A cloak, Anna's, was thrown over the back of the chair.] She pulled the hand away, letting it fall back to her side.

Elsa tried to remember. Heat. Ice. Albert.

But that thought was too painful, more painful even than the magic, so she forced her focus back to ice.

She looked to her open palm, curled and flexed her fingers and tried to let the magic loose. But she could not feel the familiar ice pulsing through in her veins. Her hand curled back into a fist, as a wave of unexpected remorse washed over her.

Albert's face flitted back in. Her frown deepened. She touched a hand to the wound on her stomach, grimacing and groaning. Bad idea.

The voices in the hallway stopped with a loud Shhh! The door opened, first a crack, and then thrown wide as Anna met her sister's eyes. Anna flew to the bed, a bucket and its contents clattering as she unceremoniously dropped it to the floor.

"Elsa! You're—I was so worried—I thought—you were—but you're—you're awake," Anna said in a grateful, tearful rush. The candle shook in her trembling hand. Elsa reached out her own to steady it.

"I'm…" she swallowed, voice rusty with non-use. " I'm okay". Together they guided the candle to the table, and then Anna was gripping her sister's hand and not letting go anytime soon. Okay was a relative term, in this case meaning just alive. But alive was enough for now.

Elsa drew a shaky breath. "What happened, after I…" Passed out? Almost died?

"The guards took him—" Anna refused to name Albert, which Elsa was oddly grateful for. "To the dungeon. I... uh, didn't actually know we had a dungeon. Kai told me. There's, like, half the guards down there right now. I'm not taking any chances with these creeps anymore."

"And the physician came and he took you—and said—you'd be okay—" Anna paused, flooded with the memory of please be okay please be okay please be okay. Elsa squeezed the hand she was still gripping. Anna smiled and shook her head, like she could shake the memory out.

"It's okay. I just—you know how I get when I think about serious stuff. I blow it out of proportion and the next thing I know the palace is, like, burned down and Arendelle is gone and there's a hurricane and a tornado and a giant sea monster attacking. You know. In my head." She tried to make a joke of it, but Elsa could see the laugh didn't reach her eyes. Anna sighed and gave in to a frown. "So it's been a, uh, stressful few hours."

"Sorry," Elsa murmured. "For worrying you."

Anna shook her head again, and just like that, it was gone. True, the last few hours had been royally sucked, right up there with the funeral and why do you shut me out? and even If only someone could love you. But Elsa was okay, or at least, y'know, alive, so screw the last couple hours. With a smile that truly lit up her eyes, she joked,

"Yeah, well, just don't go having any more near-death experiences. That's my job. Ah, no, bad joke. I just—" for a moment, her voice was small again "-can't do this without you. This… princess stuff. Or anything really, it's amazing I can function most of the time, like how many cliffs have I fallen off of in the last month?"

Elsa couldn't help but chuckle at her sister. "Too many." The compress on her forehead slid down and she pushed it back up. Anna's eyes flickered to it.

"Oh yeah, that's what I was doing—" Anna plucked the cloth off and laid it in the bowl of melting ice water. Reaching for the bucket on the ground, she continued, "Knut said you ought to be fine, at least from the…" Anna paused – she didn't want to name it, like it would hear her and start bleeding again. "Said it was just a scratch, you were really lucky."

"The ice… held. For a moment." Elsa remembered the sharp plunge of the knife, halted in the last of her magic. "If you and Kristoff hadn't—"

"Yeah, well, not to say I-told-you-so but I am so glad I ignored him when he warned me not to eavesdrop." Anna emptied the contents of the bucket into the water with a splash.

"For once, so am I." Elsa sank into the pillow, overwhelmed at the thought of her and Albert alone in the room no stop thinking about him stop— And then there was a chill on her forehead and she yelped and shivered.

"Sorry!" Anna said quickly. "Just—you were hot and that's kind of weird, so I thought something cold—wait. What?" Elsa shuddered again. "Can you feel that? Like it's actually… cold to you?"

Elsa spied the basin on the table, now filled to the brim with fresh ice. "Yes," she breathed.

Anna stared for a moment. The question hung over them. She didn't want to pry with her sister, but it was Anna. She had to ask.

"Elsa. Your powers. Are they…?"

Elsa held open her palm again, closing her eyes and willing herself to feel the icy magic rush through her. The air was dead and still. The room was hot. Her fingers curled and flexed and did nothing but throw shadows in the candlelight. Elsa was overwhelmed with relief, remorse, but mostly confusion. Anna's mouth dropped open, her eyes wide and shocked.

"Gone."

"How many cliffs?" and Knut, the name of the physician are references to Songs chapter 14.

Kristoff went to ask the trolls for help. Somehow that fact didn't work itself into the fic.