Disclaimer: Frozen and all recognizable characters are owned by Disney. (Though I'm pretty sure you all knew that, already. ^_^ )

Summary: Rather than talking to paintings, after Elsa shut her out, Anna took to playing with her invisible friend, Mara. Only, as she grew up, Mara didn't go away.

Anna stared at her sister in bewilderment. "What?"

Elsa honestly wasn't sure how to have this conversation. For once, though, she didn't think that would have been any different had she grown up to be social and well-adjusted. How did one tell their sister that her invisible friend-

Wait.

Invisible. That was the word that Anna always used, whenever she'd spoken of Mara in the past. She'd never once called her imaginary. Understandable as a child, but now that she'd reached eighteen...

Because she'd always known - or at least believed - that Mara was real. But what was Mara, exactly? She was aware of the books in the bookcase closest to the window - mostly out of sight of any visitors. Tomes that held collections of myths and history, easily confused by those who didn't know any better. All the knowledge that her father had collected about the supernatural, while he had (fruitlessly) searched for information about her powers, and how they might be controlled. (How he - or she herself, for that matter - had never picked up on the massive hint that the trolls had given them that night in all the time since, she had no idea.) Perhaps somewhere in all of that, she might find an answer to this new mystery.

She debated just putting off the conversation until later, pretending she'd just tripped and collided with the mirror on her own, but rejected the notion a moment later. She'd promised Anna, after all: no more secrets, no more lying, no more locked doors. "I'm pretty sure I just met your friend, Mara," she finally said.

Anna just looked more confused than before. "I... How? What happened?" The second question didn't seem directed solely at her, an idea which was confirmed when Anna frowned. "What?" She shook her head. "I can barely hear her. I've never heard her sound so exhausted before."

So manifesting for anyone but Anna was an enormous strain on her, it seemed. Well, at least she wouldn't likely need to worry about being strangled in her sleep or shoved off her balcony, then. "She wanted to let me know she'd be watching me, and wasn't going to let anyone hurt you again."

Anna blinked in surprise, then frowned, looking off to the side, face darkening. "Damn it, Mara, I told you that things would be fine! I-" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Elsa, I really am. She's just... protective."

And Elsa had hurt her for ten years straight. "I understand that. I would just prefer that, in the future, she not make her point quite so... forcefully."

"She won't," Anna promised immediately, then rose to her feet. "Don't move. I'll go get the doctor."

"Anna, it's just a nosebleed. I'm fine," Elsa assured her, but Anna was already swishing out the door.

It didn't take Anna long to return with the Royal Physician - she must have been running in the halls again - and she hovered anxiously while he examined the elder princess. As Elsa had suspected, she hadn't suffered any real damage. Indeed, the bleeding had already stopped. She'd have to be careful with her nose for the immediate future, so it wouldn't start back up again, but she knew that wouldn't be a problem.

She told the doctor she'd tripped and stumbled into the mirror. That was all he needed to know.

What was surprising was that Anna didn't stick around for long after he left. She'd apologized for ducking out on her, but it was obvious she wanted to be anywhere else, just then. Elsa suspected she was going to find a quiet spot somewhere so she could interrogate Mara on exactly what had happened, and chastise her for it.

Elsa didn't try to stop her.

That was a conversation that needed to happen, after all. She'd been thinking the matter over carefully during the doctor's visit, and decided that one of two things was true.

Option One: Mara actually was a figment of her sister's imagination. In this scenario, she wasn't the only one of them who had powers. Anna, shut out and ignored by everyone for years, had thought of her imaginary friend as a separate entity for so long that she'd begun manifesting her, somehow, to give voice to everything that she tried to keep concealed. (As Elsa knew all too well, concealing wasn't an effective long-term strategy for dealing with emotions.) If that were true, it would mean Anna wasn't quite as okay with things - and with her sister - as she wanted everyone to believe. Not good, by any means, but something she could certainly deal with.

Option Two: There was someone or some thing inside her sister. Mara being a real... person, for lack of a better term, was far more worrying. (Though it did at least suggest that Anna was being truthful in her reactions to Elsa, powers and all.) The idea of some unknown entity possessing her sister was chilling - literally; the room's temperature swiftly began plummeting - and she didn't have the slightest idea how to get it out of her. She couldn't even risk harming it, as any such efforts were only likely to harm Anna instead.

She never would have thought she'd actually want Anna to be secretly upset with her.

Sighing quietly, she moved over to the occult bookcase and began perusing the shelves. There weren't too many books to choose from - her father had only sought out those that might conceivably be of some help with her, after all - so she wasn't expecting to find much information there. One, written in Dutch, seemed to be an encyclopedia of some sort, which she thought was probably her best bet.

She sat down at her desk, opening the book atop the stack of courting and/or marriage requests, and began skimming through it. Dutch wasn't her strongest language, but she was conversant enough to manage well enough. The main problem was that she had no real idea what she was looking for. 'Mostly invisible being that lives in someone's head and can slam people into mirrors' wasn't exactly helpful in narrowing things down. On a whim, she skipped to the 'M' section and began reading through that. Really, though, she doubted it would be that-

Mara - A maleficent female wraith in Scandinavian folklore that causes nightmares.

Had she actually been drinking any of the water Anna had brought back with her before, she might well have sprayed it all over her desk.

"Nightmares?" Anna repeated, confused.

Mara, staring at the floor and looking, for the first time in Anna's memory, ashamed, nodded. Once secure in her bedroom, Anna had demanded an explanation of what had happened with Elsa, and Mara had complied, even manifesting a physical appearance (or the illusion of one, Anna supposed) upon Anna's request, so that she could actually see her reactions, despite how tired she was. When Anna had asked how she'd managed to do it, that had lead to an explanation of just what, exactly, Mara actually was.

The answer was not what Anna had expected it to be.

"I don't think I've ever had any nightmares," Anna continued, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

"I've never given you any," Mara replied. "I can't say you've never had any, but I try to steer your mind away from them, when I can."

"Then why...?"

"What I do now and what I once did are not the same." She sighed. "I didn't just spring whole into being that night when you were five, Anna. I have a past, and... Well, it's not a pretty one." There was that look of shame, again.

Anna was feeling somewhat ashamed herself. "I am such a bad friend," she declared, shoulders falling.

Mara's head snapped up. "No, you're not. What are you talking about?"

"I am!" Anna insisted. "How could I never ask where you came from, or what you used to do? You always just go along with what I want to do, and I just take that for granted, instead of asking what you might want to do, or where you might want to go... I knew you weren't imaginary, right from the beginning, but only now do I ask any follow-up questions?"

Mara shook her head. "Don't blame yourself. I didn't exactly volunteer any information, did I? Even knowing how that sort of obfuscation about your sister hurt you." She wilted, admitting, "And I'm still doing it. My past... isn't something I enjoy talking about. Some things, I don't ever want to discuss, even knowing how angry you'll be with me when you find out the truth. But... You deserve answers. So, ask me what you want. I'll try to answer them as best I can."

Anna didn't know where to start.

Best to start with the obvious question, Elsa decided as she flipped through the book.

What, exactly, was a wraith?

The wraith is a vague term that describes a ghostly creature, a spirit of another world, or more generally a mysterious being to be feared.

Etymology

The word may be of Scots origin, possibly through Old Norse vörðr, meaning "guardian" (cf. the Modern English cognates "ward" and "warden"), and related to Irish arrach, meaning "apparition". An association with the verb "writhe" has also been claimed. The word "wraith" is first attested in 1513, with the meaning of "ghost or spectre" (that is, an apparition of a living or once-living being, possibly as a portent of death).

In 18th century Scotland it was applied to aquatic spirits. Over time, it came to be used in a metaphoric sense to refer to wraith-like things, and to portents in general.

Description

The classic depiction of a wraith is identical to the image of a tall, humanoid figure shrouded in a black cloak, under which no face can be seen, though a hand protrudes and long, sharp fingers.

Well, that certainly didn't match the girl she'd seen in the mirror. Though, if Mara were only some kind of spirit, perhaps she could simply take on whatever features she chose. Admittedly, Anna had always seen her that way, so maybe it was her new default appearance.

The wraith is a being of power, controlled by a greater spirit to do the creatures will. These creatures are shadows, floating amongst our realm with no purpose but that of their masters. They feed on humans, their emotions and their own strength, without these they would cease to exist. Information considering their lesser-known qualities is difficult to obtain.

Unless... one were to simply ask, she supposed. Not an option for most, if they were as rare and secretive as it seemed, but... Mara had been around for thirteen years, and showed no signs of going away anytime soon. Maybe she'd be willing to talk, if Anna were doing the asking.

She had to admit, though, that what she really wanted to know was how to make the wraith go away. Not an answer she imagined Mara would be inclined to give. And if she'd been sent by some greater spirit... Well, that just raised a whole host of new questions. Foremost among them being: What did any of them want with Anna?

Or, she amended as she watched patterns of frost slowly creep across the book's pages, was it Anna that they wanted at all?

"Is there anything else I need to know?" Anna fidgeted awkwardly. She didn't like prying into things that made people uncomfortable, especially Mara. However, she also didn't like it when people hid things from her, as Mara obviously had been doing.

Pointing out that she was guilty of exactly what she'd been so upset with Elsa for doing hadn't made anybody happy.

"Not right now, no," Mara replied. It was clear she hated having this conversation, hated that she needed to, but she'd told Anna to ask whatever she wanted, and would do her best to answer. "There are still things that... Well, hopefully, none of them will ever become an issue. If that changes, I assure you that I'll let you know."

Anna couldn't say she was happy about that, but at least Mara was being up front about it, rather than lying the way her parents had, or offering evasions like Elsa. She was hiding things, but she admitted she was hiding things, and really, didn't everyone have secrets? Mara deserved some privacy, too, and given that they were sharing headspace... Well, this seemed the least Anna could do, especially given everything Mara had done for her over the years. "I don't think Elsa's going to like this," she said instead.

"Elsa didn't like me before she knew I wasn't just a figment of your imagination," Mara replied evenly. "Though, I admit, I may have gone a bit... overboard, in warning her."

"I just hope-" She was interrupted by a knock on her door.

"Anna?"

For a moment - just a brief moment - she toyed with the idea of telling Elsa to go away. Partly because she wasn't done talking to Mara, but mostly... Well, mostly because there was a part of her - a small, angry part - that thought that Elsa deserved it, deserved to know what it felt like, to be shut out by the sister she loved so much. The rest of her, however, couldn't even conceive of shutting people out. She knew all-too well how much it hurt, after all. "Come in," she called.

Elsa opened the door and stepped inside, hesitating for a moment before shutting it behind her. Anna stiffened. So, it was going to be that conversation already, was it? Well, never let it be said that Elsa wastes any time, she thought. She didn't even have to check to see that, despite Elsa being unable to see it, Mara had let the illusion of a physical body go. It existed only in Anna's mind, after all, and she didn't want to tie up any of her mental resources just then.

And maybe, just maybe, she still felt bad about what she'd done to Elsa, and didn't want to face her. Even if Elsa didn't know she would have been doing so.

"Anna..." She rubbed her hands - ungloved, at least - together. "We need to talk about your... friend."

Anna faced her, crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay." After everything... She felt no need to make this easy for her sister. However... "She wanted to apologize, by the way. She knows she let her emotions get the better of her, and overreacted."

For all that she wore no gloves, Elsa's emotionless mask was on full display. "Apology accepted," she said carefully. "Anna... Do you know what she is?"

"Yes." Elsa blinked in surprise, clearly not having expected that. "She told me. And I don't care what she says, I am a bad friend for never having asked before now."

No, you're not.

"No, you're not," Elsa unknowingly echoed. She paused, then hesitantly asked, "Are you sure that... she didn't accidentally influence you not to ask questions? If she's in your mind, after all, and didn't want to discuss something..."

On the one hand, Anna knew, from an objective point of view, Elsa's question was valid. She didn't really know Mara at all, and while Anna knew that she never would have done such a thing on purpose, if she really felt strongly about it, it might well be possible that that would have seeped across.

On the other hand... Elsa had just essentially accused Mara of playing with her mind. Her fists clenched in anger. "No. Mara would not do that to me. Mara is not the one who screwed around with my thoughts and memories. Is she?"

Elsa flinched. "You know they only did that-"

"-to save my life, yes, so you said. But it wasn't necessary to save my life, was it? Altering my memories, hiding things from me, lying to me?! They didn't have to do any of that!"

Elsa grimaced. Perhaps Option One wasn't as far-fetched as she'd thought, no matter what the encyclopedia had said. "There's nothing we can do to change that," she said carefully.

Anna closed her eyes for a long moment, straining to hold her temper in check. Elsa didn't deserve to have her explode at her for something their parents and a troll had done, after all. "I know," she finally said, staring at her sister in frustration. "But what they did to me - to both of us - was wrong, and you just don't seem to get that."

Now Elsa's eyes narrowed. "Is that what you think? That I didn't spend every minute of those ten years wondering if their approach was going to work, asking myself what I'd done to deserve to have to shut myself away, to not be able to even touch another person safely?"

"You know full well that is not what I-"

"Ten years I had to live with the guilt of what I did to you! I hope to God you never know how it feels, to be swallowed up by fear like that!"

"Because they wouldn't let me help!"

Anna?

"You couldn't have helped! No one could, then! I really believed I was some kind of mon-"

"Don't you dare say that word! You have never been anything of the kind!"

Anna!

"That didn't stop me from thinking that I was! You don't know what it was like, seeing you laying there so still and cold, knowing I'd done that!"

"It was an accident, damn it! How many times-?"

ANNA!

A deafening crack of thunder split the air, loud enough to actually shake the castle and jostle a few things off of Anna's shelves. The sisters simultaneously jumped in shock, then looked out the windows at the clear, blue sky.

"What...?" Anna began, trailing off when she couldn't manage to summon up the words to finish the question.

"I... don't know." Elsa frowned in confusion and uncertainty.

Anna, Mara began for the fourth time. Yelling like that isn't going to solve anything.

"Wait... Mara, was that...?" To say Anna was surprised by even the idea would have been a distinct understatement.

She got the impression of Mara raising an eyebrow at her, but she didn't say anything in response.

Elsa looked equally surprised, though far more unhappy about it. Given that Mara had slammed her into a mirror in a moment of anger, that was understandable. "Since when can she...?"

"This would be the first I've ever seen of it," Anna said, though a moment later she wondered if that was actually true. All those static jolts people kept suffering wherever she went, getting slowly stronger over time... "She's right, though. I shouldn't be yelling at you about this, especially with your coronation in two weeks. I'm sorry."

Thinking about her upcoming coronation immediately distracted Elsa from everything else. "I'm sorry, too. I just..."

"I know. Me, too." Anna hugged her, secretly relieved when there weren't any sparks of static electricity. "Let's just... set all this aside for the time being, okay? It'll still be there once you're Queen."

Elsa nodded slowly. "Okay. That sounds like a plan." Not necessarily a good one, but a plan.

Despite what they'd agreed to, however, neither of them really believed that any Mara-related issues would be all that far from the surface over the next two weeks.

Elsa could only hope that, by then, she'd have some idea of what to do.