"Elsa?! Elsa, where are you?!" Anna was racing around trying to find her sister among the rain and lightening that danced around her like vicious spritely ballerinas, trying to drown her or strike her heart out with an electric lashing.
The ship rocked to and fro in the frothy vengeance of storm against nature, that was the swelling sea. Three times she fell from either tripping or slipping. The crew was in a frenzy to secure the sails and themselves as to not end up being thrown overboard. The captain starred up in awe, but inside his mind he was cursing himself for not spotting the omens that predicted this. He was too captivated to move and so the crew took the ship into their own hands and whizzed about him on their way to save their lives.
Elsa was out of the storm, in the Captain's Quarters, scrawling a letter and attaching it onto a frightened, icy dove of her own creation. In the letter was a warning that the ship from Arendelle was in grave danger. They were caught in a storm at sea. Send help immediately.
Just in case she couldn't do anything, at least she could do this.
She gathered the dove in her hands and rushed out of the captain's quarters and burst out onto the deck. She raised a hand to shield her vision from the onslaught of rain and ocean spray. She saw no use in trying to look out and retreated back down a little back towards captain's quarters until she and the bird were out of the pouring rain.
Elsa looked to the bird desperately and prayed a tiny prayer for it before telling it what to do.
"Find land, find a person. We aren't that far from the German coast line, I'm sure. Try to find the kingdom of Corona."
Elsa ran back up the few steps and threw the dove into the air. It wasn't the rain that made the dove hesitant, it was the excessive heat of the lightening that made the dove question it's masters orders. But, onward it flapped it's wings, beating up above and away from the ship, onward to Corona.
Elsa watched it fly away until Anna blocked her view.
"Elsa! What are doing! What are you looking at?!" Anna turned around to try and look up to what her sister was looking at and saw a tiny reflection of light in the sky. It looked like a star, but she knew better. All there was to see was clouds and of course the storm, but nothing above the clouds could be seen for sure.
Then Anna felt herself being pushed aside and she looked back down to see Elsa running away from her. "ELSA!" She cried out and ran after her.
Elsa had tiny fragments of a plan whirling around in her head as she raced for the eagle's nest. All the while Anna was chasing her and some of the crew became alert to the Queen running about on the deck and were asking/ordering her to get back under the deck for her safety. She wouldn't hear it, she reached the beam and scrambled up as best she could, what with fighting against gravity, and the slippery ladder, and the howling winds constantly threatening to blow her off and away into the broiling sea as the ship continued to rock side to side violently.
The crew let Elsa alone when they knew she was too far up to hear them and went on to try and drag Anna away from the beam and take her somewhere safe.
"NO, MY SISTER! I CAN'T LEAVE HER! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" They wouldn't and so she struggled against their burly, massive arms hoping that her skin and clothes where drenched enough to be able to slip out of their vice grip. She wouldn't stop squirming and kicking and thrusting her body in every which way she could until she finally broke loose from the men's hold. She went in a dead sprint back towards the eagle's nest beam, the rain never letting up. She got knocked down by a crashing wave that came aboard, but she got right back up and clambered up the ladder too.
One of the men that held her back simply turned around in annoyance and barked, "If they want to get themselves killed, let 'em! Come on mates! We've got our own skin to save."
Half way up, Elsa was already heaving and panting for breath. She wasn't very adept for climbing. She had just become somewhat proficient at running, but this was much more than just pumping your legs. She was straddling the beam with what little strength she had left.
Anna, being much more experienced, reached Elsa in no time. "What are you doing Elsa?! Go if you're gonna go! I'm right behind you!" Anna cried out.
"Anna? No! Go away! I don't want you to get hurt! I have to try. I have to do this alone!" Elsa shrieked back over the pounding thunder and crackling of lightening. She could feel her body starting to slip from the slippery hold she barely had around the beam.
"There's no way in Hell I'm leaving you alone on this one!" Anna yelled and continued upward until her head hit Elsa's bottom. "Just climb, and I'll push you up!" Anna ordered, and Elsa saw she had no other choice as another streak of lightening stroked even more close than before. She reached up one arm at a time as Anna pushed her up the beam all the way until they reached the nest. Elsa crawled up and then turned back to help Anna up too.
Together they stood and looked up above the ship, clinging to the wooden railing of the look out nest as the ship still swayed back and forth. They had never been on a ship before but they knew in their gut that the ship was going to capsize at any moment. All the crew was tied down from the main mast so that they could still run around but not fall off.
"What's the plan?" Anna shouted over the storm, but Elsa couldn't hear her now. It was so incredibly loud up there, Elsa thought they must have been put right smack dab in the middle of it all. She closed her eyes in an attempt to calm herself down, to try to blatantly forget where she was and what was happening so that she could summon the courage to let go of the railing. It worked for a split second but that's all she needed. She lifted her hands away from the wood and towards the aggravated sky as it spilt it's crystalline blood from the Heavens and she willed from her spirit for the rain to turn into snow. But the wind knocked her down, and almost over the railing, and only a few moments did the rain turn into snow. That wasn't going to work then.
"ELSA!" Anna cried and went over to get her sister before she felt down onto the deck below. "Elsa, are you alright?!"
Elsa clasped on the railing for her life and ran through all the other fragment's of the plans she had thought of, but only one kept lighting the way in her head. She looked out to the thrashing sea, threatening to take them all. She thought of the guilt she felt, the anger, that if she had just gone with her parents she could have maybe saved them.
In an outburst of anger Elsa snapped back, and almost knocked Anna down from behind her, and Elsa went back to the beam and went to climb higher, but now there was no ladder, but then again there was no place higher on the ship than the tip of the eagle nest beam, and so up she went, fighting against the rain and wind to the very top. Anna tried to scramble beneath her, but to no avail. She couldn't get a grip. Elsa was freezing her hands around the drenched wood to keep herself on until she got to where there was nothing else to climb and with one breath and a moment of patience for the wind to blow just right she detached and flew with the storm. The crew looked up to see their Queen flying in the tempest and they gasped in horror. Anna reached up as if to catch her from thirty feet below.
Elsa's calculations proved correct and she dove down deep straight into the sea below. She fought against the current and waves to resurface but it proved too difficult. Debris was floating above where ever she tried to surface and as panic began to consume her and the lack of air became apparent she enacted her plan in the worst place she imagined, but it had to work or else all was lost.
She struck out her hands in the freezing water, and, with only thinking about her fear, she unleashed an unholy attack against the sea and froze it solid within seconds with her awesome power of ice. The ship was stuck half way tipping to the right, almost ready to capsize if Elsa had waited another moment.
"ELSA!" Anna shrieked in agony and pain, now reaching out towards the sea, which was now calm and completely frozen. Tears ran down her face as well as the rain. The ship wasn't rocking anymore, but the rain still pelted down and the wind still howled, but that was all very tolerable without the swishing and swashing of their vessel.
Elsa could open her eyes and all she saw was ice around her. She had done it! She had saved them all! But then the panic returned. She had saved them, but doomed herself. How was she going to get out of the ice? She can't melt ice, she couldn't even move! This was something she hadn't practiced. Making the ice go away once she brought it out. Or at least, will it away. She guessed it was now or never though.
'Feel... Feel... Heat, warmth, mother's hug, father's love, Anna's smile, Anna's laugh. Feel.' Elsa chanted in her head, trying to will the ice above her away so that she could swim back up and breathe again. The edges of her vision was going black; she didn't have much longer. It had been well over a minute under the ice.
'The hearth, the smoke, the shared cocoa at night...' The first time it happened Elsa fought just enough to go conscious again. 'Anna's smile, Anna's... Laugh...' She swore that she shifted up slightly. The second time proved too much. Elsa blacked out.
Anna raced down the beam the moment the ship stopped moving and ran to the edge to jump off and she landed harshly on the ice. The crash landing sent a jarring pain through her entire, but she still struggled and got up to look for her sister beneath the icy surface. She scoured everywhere for at the very least a dark spot that could resemble her sister and then she found it. She just knew it was Elsa. The ice was practically clear, but Elsa dove so deep... It had to be her.
Anna looked around for some way to get to her and found a pick-ax. She raced for it and wrenched it free from the ice and and raced back to the spot above Elsa and began to dig and break the ice. She hammered fiercely and then heard more hammering. Some of the crew had followed her lead and jumped over board and grabbed anything sharp to help her break the ice and get to the water below.
"All together now!" Anna barked and the ten other men all lifted their tools together. "NOW!" And they all hammered at once and a long crack appeared and ran down some length, making the surface quake somewhat. "Again!"
The heaved up their tools and set again for the hole they created and they did this three more times until finally a hole was created but not before the ice had cracked all around them and had them either sinking or floating away as much of the icy surface was damaged from their blows, but the water remained calm. The storm had lost most of it's fuel by then after only two minutes of nothing to blow around.
Anna threw her ax aside and dove into the dark water. The men protested but were too late, she disappeared below. Anna couldn't understand why Elsa hadn't surfaced already as she swam deeper to get to her. Elsa was now sinking, since the team above had cracked and shifted the portion of ice above her setting her free from her quick prison. Anna regretted not taking a bigger breath and pressed on. Her fingers were stretched out as far as possible but all they felt was the frigid water, but the thought that Elsa had sacrificed herself for her made her stretch them farther. She would sacrifice herself for her sister again, a hundred times again if it meant she would stay alive.
Then, finally, they brushed against something other than water. Anna immediately tightened her hand around whatever it was and yanked it up. Whatever it was, it was heavy, like a person. Anna had to just hope it was Elsa, she was starting to black out from the exertion and of lack of air, and she swam one handedly up to the surface. She closed her eyes in hopes that that would conserve some energy and she kicked like a mad woman, which she was and she felt that she kicked what ever was in the hands.
She reopened her eyes when she thought she was above the frigid water, but alas she was still ten feet away, but she couldn't find the strength to kick anymore, her arm felt like lead, it was heavy and weak. it began to fall and her mind began to fail her.
Then, as all seemed to be lost, a thin object broke through the water, and Anna squinted her eyes in every effort to figure out what it was. It was a rope! A rope! With one last ditch effort she kicked and it was just enough to boost her up enough to grasp the knotted end of the rope and the tug alerted the men that someone had grabbed it and the now thirty men heaved and pulled the Princess and Queen onto the crumbling ice.
Anna immediately began willing air back into her lungs by the heap full, and ordered, in ragged breaths, the men to take them aboard that very instant. Two men came over and picked the sisters up separately, but Anna was much too weak to protest. They all rushed for the ropes hanging over the ship and climbed back up as fast as they could as the ship began to move again. The ice was beginning to melt. And with that much ice that was cast out for miles upon miles, there was only one explanation that none of them could see.
Once back on board the men set the girls down and Anna got onto her feet in desperation to get to her sister who wasn't breathing.
"Elsa?" Anna's voice was weak and watered down. She knelt down beside her and bent down to hover her ear over Elsa's chest. Nothing. She rose up and put a hand over Elsa's open mouth. Nothing. She put a finger under Elsa's nose. Nothing...
She began to give in the hope that Elsa was alive, but there was still this gnawing intuition that she wasn't completely with their parents yet. At that thought she heard the rushing footfalls of someone.
"I'm a doctor! Move aside!" The man ran to the girls, pushing through the crowd. When he reached them he began is routine spiel that everything was going to be alright, he could save her, but with every word Anna lost hope.
The doctor withdrew his stethoscope from his medical bag and listened for a heartbeat. He heard the most faint, desperate noise in all his years through those tubes. The final thumps of a heroes heart. "She's alive." He whispered with a little disbelief. Then he went on to throw his stethoscope back into the bag haphazardly and continued on to performing hands-on CPR, while rooting Elsa on to wake up. "Don't leave us to this grand party without you you're majesty."
Anna began to cry again despite herself and she felt a blanket of some kind being wrapped around her shoulders. The captain stood behind her looking onto the fate of the Queen. "Wake up." He whispered gently as the doctor kept pumping against Elsa's chest and occasionally blowing into her mouth and then listening for her heart and then repeating.
A cough, a sputter, a fluttering of lashes, then-
"There she blows!" The captain bellowed, startling Anna onto her feet, and making the whole crew roar and cheer with celebration!
"Elsa!" Anna cried out and strode towards her as Elsa sprang up and expelled the sea onto the deck from within her.
Anna pounced on her, resounding with gleeful laughter and Elsa stopped smiling for a moment as Anna wrapped her sodden arms around her. Elsa remembered what it was, her last thoughts before she blacked out. Anna. Her laugh. How golden and precious it was to hear it of all times. She never hugged her little sister so hard for the rest of her life than on that day.
After the "fun" had died down and the sister were back in the captain's quarters a crew member burst through the doors.
"Oy! What would be the meanin' of this?! The captain shouted at the young man, but that did not deter him.
"It's Corona! Their colors are coming this way! They are meeting us!"
Then as the young man finished his sentence a bird flew in. But not just any bird, no, it was Elsa's icy dove, with another letter attached onto it. The dove flew straight towards Elsa, and landed in her outstretched hands.
"What does it say?!" Anna asked excitedly, her arms around her sister tightening, radiating more warmth for Elsa, for which Elsa was eternally grateful.
Elsa untied the letter from the dove's leg and unraveled it.
"We have received your letter. Corona has sent a convoy out find, and if necessary, rescue. What a magnificent creature you have sent. No, you didn't state from whom this was sent, but whom else could it be. We hope to see you all safe and sound. Godspeed."
The royal crest of Corona was stamped at the bottom to serve as the king's signature. He played Elsa's game of keeping anonymity as well. Who knows who could have intercepted the letter? But as the man said, he saw Corona's flags. It was the king whom responded.
"A little late." Anna joked, but they all felt the same as they all smiled and laughed.
"Better late than never though right?" Elsa asked rhetorically and they all agreed together with another laugh.
"Well then come on!" Anna jumped up and held out her hands for Elsa to take, to help her up. "We've got a party to get to."