Dinner went over fantastically, as the queen mother was sure it would. The table was set up so that Anna had a whole side to herself so that she might stay in bed comfortably. And half of dinner consisted of Anna retelling of her and Rapunzel's adventure.
But, still, no word of Elsa and Anna's.
The king and queen couldn't help but keep staring at Elsa, and whenever Elsa would shift her eyes, even the slightest, they'd look away to either their plates or Anna as she kept recounting. They felt desperate to her something from her now. But, Amelia was determined to be patient. She just wanted dinner to go by a little more fast so that she'd have them all to herself.
Dinner went fantastic, but not fast. Not in the slightest. The sisters always took their sweet sweeeeet time at dinner at home, and they tried to hurry things along for the sake of their hosts, but their hosts didn't want to rush them either so they all endured a not so happy happy medium.
Servants were finally called in and the table brought taken out once it was cleared. And that's when Amelia made her mistake of asking, when she say Anna stretching out in a wild yawn, "Would you like to move our talk to a later time girls?"
Thomas looked back to his wife at hearing her question. Eugene and Rapunzel had just left before him, their footfalls still audible. The king and queen's eyes met for a moment and then Amelia returned her eyes to the very beaten down looking Anna.
"Nooooo! You have stories about our mother." Anna kept fighting through her cumbersome yawns to speak and the queen mother knew her curiosity would not be quenched that night. There was probably no way she'd get to be alone with Elsa long enough for Elsa to feel comfortable to recount what she went through.
Elsa went to sit next to her sister in bed and made to tuck Anna in. Thomas knew what would happen after that, and he knew no amount of optical, let alone verbal communication was going to make his wife leave soon without trying to get them to open up. He turned back to the doorway and left without another glance.
"Anna you can barely get two words out. You're eyes are heavy. Even if she stayed here to tell you stories you'd fall asleep in a matter of seconds."
"Of all the nights to be dead tired so quickly." Anna sighed, after another yawn of course.
"You went through a lot today!"
"And you didn't?!" Anna's eyes lightened just a touch as she noticed Elsa wasn't that tired looking, or at least no more than usual.
"I'm used to busy days." Elsa stated plainly, a small, but warm, smile hanging onto her lips.
"Perhaps another time then? I do suppose you two would love to rest, what with all you two have been through today." Elsa heard it. She heard every single yearning syllable. She looked to the queen mother, but Amelia only smiled kindly, her hands clasped together
eloquently in front her her, her stature strict but graceful.
Elsa knew better. She saw right through the queen's stance. It was brooding and eager, but caged in order to behave. Elsa knew Amelia knew about what happened. Elsa had actually managed to set the whole ordeal aside all day. Her and Anna never discussed it. It was much to close a call for them. They knew they'd talk about it one day, but they both knew it would be when Elsa was ready. She died. She was completely dead. She drowned under twenty feet of ice, and with ice surrounding her for miles and miles on end.
"Yes, perhaps another time. Thank you though, for all of your hospitality today. It is greatly appreciated, I assure you, Amelia." Elsa responded firmly. Her hands gripped around Anna's arms a little more tight, her eyes were opened a little more wide. Anna was the only one to be sensitive enough by now to feel that the temperature dropped a few degrees.
Amelia got the message.
"Then I will bade you two goodnight. If you need anything, do not hesitate. Even if it's for my husband and I or Eugene or Rapunzel."
"Of course.-" Sleep finally overtook Anna more vigorously than any of them thought it would as a snore sounded out from the slumbering princess. Elsa suppressed a giggle all her fears gone for a moment. Amelia merely beamed with delight. "Thank you."
"I'll be in my chambers for a few more hours, and then off to bed in the east wing if you need me." Amelia whispered low to Elsa and Elsa consciously fought to keep herself calm. She didn't want to face what she did yet, and she felt as if that wasn't going to work for her in the end. She wasn't going to be able to leave without confronting it, she knew.
Elsa only apprehensively nodded in reply and the queen mother allowed her to have her space.
"Good night then Elsa. Sweet dreams." And without another word Amelia left the sisters alone in the room.
"Momma?" Little Elsa called out in the expansive hallway of the castle back home. "Momma, where are you?" Little Elsa was becoming anxious at the idea of someone finding her of her room unsupervised. Or worse, Anna finding her. Anna asking her why they don't get to be together all the time anymore. Ask her if she liked the new light streak in her hair.
"Elsa." A strong voice resounded out and Elsa spun around trying to locate where it came from.
"Momma! Momma!" Elsa just started to go down the plush carpet, tired of looking.
"Elsa." Her mother's voice became more weak, but still Elsa pressed on in the direction she chose.
"I'm coming momma! Stay there!" Elsa called out, but then she saw ice was crystallizing all around her, spreading from her moving feet. It was ripping the color out of the carpet and walls, turning everything blue, like it was suffocating the castle.
"Elsa." Now her mother's voice was a weak, faint whisper. Tears came to Elsa's eyes, but she never felt the sting at her nose, and when they fell they were little droplets of ice, making a little bell ring when they hit the carpet, despite how soft it was.
Now frustrated, little Elsa started to run towards the whispering voice of her mother. Each time she heard her the voice was even more quiet and Elsa's frustration only festered more until she felt so desperate she'd have loved to see anyone coming her way. Anyone at all.
Her ice tears blinded her so bad she couldn't see. They stopped falling and stacked themselves together to block her vision all together and Elsa scraped at her eyes to be able to see again. She never saw the window coming. She crashed through it.
Instead of falling though the tempest outside held her aloft and blew her about violently but when she could finally see again, rubbing away the last remnants of the ice away, she saw the fjord below her, and she knew she was going to her parent's ship and so she felt comfortable, even as she was tossed every which way by the terrible winds.
Then the ship came into view as the wind blew fierce and fast, but it settled down more and more as it and Elsa came closer to the ship.
Elsa was glad to get out of the wind, but it wouldn't let her land on the deck. She tried everything to get out of the air but she couldn't do a single thing, it kept blowing her across the frantically swaying ship.
Then Elsa stopped fidgeting when she saw two girls running towards the center of the ship, to the tallest pole. One girl had hair white like snow, and the other had hair red as fire. The fire girl was helping the other climb up, and little Elsa felt herself lifting along with them, and so she tried to call out to them, but they never looked back to see who was screaming at them.
Then they all reached the highest they could and the two girls pulled each other onto the observant deck and held fast to the railings. Little Elsa was moving perpendicular to them until the wind blew her twenty feet in front of them and she hollered out to them the whole time until she actually saw their faces.
The snow girl... well... she looked like little Elsa's mother, just with white hair. Elsa tried to call out again, but then suddenly torrents of rain crashed down on her drowning out her screams and so she waved her arms frantically and she saw the snow girl look at her and then let go of the railings and she let out a blast of icy fury that sent little Elsa hurdling down deep into the swelling sea. Snow girl never saw her there.
Little Elsa was abuzz with panic as the sea tried to swallow her, but she just kept pawing up through the water stretching as far as she could to get to the surface, but then something fell, and what ever it was gripped onto her and started to drag her down again. Little Elsa started to shriek at her captor, "LET ME GO LET ME GO!" The fact that she was breathing and screaming crystal clear under water didn't phase her, what did was the ice quickly forming all around them.
Little Elsa began to claw desperately at her captor's hand and then her captor's head snapped up and little Elsa yelped with fright at the sight of the snow girl, her eyes bright orbs of blinding white light. Elsa squinted from the light and could see that the snow girl was saying something and it was becoming more clear as the ice grew quicker, entrapping them and little Elsa was terrified but she knew that whatever the snow girl was saying was important so she stopped thrashing to try and listen. The ice connected to their skin and began to invade inside them at once when little Elsa stopped moving and now little Elsa struggled with wild panic because she could hardly breath anymore. Ice was in her lungs.
The snow girl's eyes glowed strong until little Elsa couldn't breathe anymore and they began to dim, but now her words were fully audible, despite the impossibility.
"Father's hug, mother's kiss, Anna's laugh." The snow girl chanted and she chanted over and over as her eyes grew more and more dim, the whole sea growing dark, both their eyelids slipping, the snow girl's chanting entrancing little Elsa to think of only those three things as her heart beat slowed, her mind came to a halt, her body failed her, those three things, then... Nothing.
Elsa bolted up from the bed. She hadn't even bothered to change into her sleep clothes, or even get under the covers to spare moving Anna too much and waking her. Elsa clutched at her chest and heaved giant gulps of air into her lungs. She felt as though she was being suffocated and slowly her nightmare reappeared in her mind. The eerie voice taunting her in consciousness.
"Father's hug, mother's kiss, Anna's laugh." Elsa literally jumped out of bed after rehearing that. She immediately fell to the ground on all fours and she felt ice leaking from her where she touched the ground and she jumped again to get away from it. It was pitch black in the room, like the sea...
Elsa clamped her freezing cold hands to her mouth to contain her yelp before it turned into a pure unadulterated scream. She forced her legs heavy with stupid sleep to run somewhere and she ended up running into a wall but she used it to find her way to the door and when she found it she tore it open and ran out into the hallway where there was light from the candles so that the servants could continue with their night shifts.
There Elsa let herself collapse onto the floor again. She crawled back over the wall next to the open door and sat back and thrust her hands under her armpits and she crossed her legs like basket so that her feet wouldn't make full direct contact to the ground and make it easier not to full out freeze the whole palace in an instant.
She sat there gasping for breath and praying for peace and serenity, or for at least her breath back! But, she was too anxious still to just sit there. She got up but still kept her hands under her arms and just began to walk.
She had no clue where she was going, she wasn't paying much attention. She passed at least two dozen hallways and she kept thinking about the only route she really knew, the route to the queen's chambers, but she didn't want to go there really. Well, she did, but she didn't. She wanted her own real mother, not some counterfeit.
That thought struck a chord deep within Elsa when she thought of Amelia as a counterfeit. Did she really mean that? No, she knew she didn't, but in the end what else is she? A woman trying her best to make her feel welcome into her home. A woman who was holding her interests at heart but letting her make her own decisions. Did that make her a counterfeit?
The only thing Elsa was positive was that she glad for the distraction. It just distracted her a little too much.
"Whoa!" Eugene almost fell over from how hard Elsa ran into him, but instinct inside of Elsa made her reach out and grab Eugene's wrists and pull him back up before his rear end got acquainted to the floor. When Elsa had realized what she was doing she yelped in surprise and yanked her hands back before she could hurt him. She was relieved that the only reason Eugene was rubbing at his wrists was because she had held onto him to tight.
"You've got quite some grip you know that?" He hissed a little at the pain, but he knew it didn't really hurt that bad. He looked away from his wrists to see Elsa in a stone cold panic, her eyes flitting in every direction, looking for an escape.
"Where are you headed in such an early hour?" Eugene asked innocently enough. He hoped it would bring her focus into... Well, focus.
She looked at him with her big blue eyes, begging for some relief and he understood at once. He stood up straight and put his brain in gear to handle what was happening.
"You had a nightmare?" He asked, again very innocent.
She just looked at him, her eyes pleading for him to understand.
"No, you just had the nightmare." Elsa's brow rose with speculation. "Yeah, I know all about it. Why do you think I'm up and walking around at two in the morning too? As much I do love the morning, I prefer it when the sun is at least awake as well." Eugene joked and Elsa wanted so to laugh too, but she was still so scared.
"If you're looking for the queen she's retired to bed for the night, but I'm sure she'd be more than happy to talk with you." Eugene offered. He pointed directly behind Elsa to show where the queen and king's bedroom was.
Elsa turned her head back a little, but she never fully looked.
"You don't want to speak with her?"
Elsa opened her mouth to talk but only air came out, not words. She took in a stabilizing breath and tried again. Eugene simply waited very patiently, wanting to give her all the space and time she needed to speak.
"I-It's not t-that I don-don't want to... I just just c-c-can't." Elsa stuttered out with billowing breaths as her tears strangled her voice in her throat. She was very pleased to feel them though, feel hot steaming, streaming tears, opposed to ice tears that just formed and fell straight from her eyes to the carpet below.
"Well, if you want... I mean, I'm not doing anything important right now." Eugene said, sweeping his hands side to side to emphasize there was nothing there to do for him to clear his mind. "If you don't want to talk we can just walk. No harm in a two o'clock stroll to ease your worries." Eugene's tone was so calm and relaxed, Elsa felt her tears slowing down at the sound if him tacitly assuring her that she's going to be alright.
Elsa looked back all the way, considering her options. Option one: Go back to Anna and talk about it, but open up a can of worms in the process. Option two: Go wake up the queen. Completely out of the question. Elsa was afraid to wake up her own mother when she was asleep! Elsa turned her head back to Eugene. Option three: Go ahead and stay ahead of the game and walk with Eugene, which shouldn't cause any problems and hopefully any more tears.
Elsa nodded her head once, but it was a huge undertaking that she was agreeing to.
"Great!" Eugene exclaimed and offered his arm for her to take and with a shaky hand she took it and off they walked, two strangers, a thief and a sorceress.
"So, would you like to start, or shall I? You know, ladies first?" Eugene inquired and Elsa kept looking forward but ended up losing her facade and bowed her head with a wobbly sigh.
"Well I guess I've dressed up as a woman a time or two to qualify to go first." Eugene answered for himself. Elsa shot a questioning glance at him but there was no mistaking that a smile was stitched to her face.
"Trust me, that's not what my nightmares entail. Well... Maybe a few of them... What? What's that look for? Do you think the only powerful thieves and bandits are men?! I'll have you know that I've been beat by plenty of women before and not once was my ego bruised. The Stabbington brothers felt different of course, but our defeat only made us want to work harder to not get caught and for the most part we succeeded."
"I'm sorry... Stabbington brothers? You got yourself mixed up with people named Stabbington?" Elsa insisted with a crumbly voice. She felt much better though after just a few steps, she felt more strong again and her anxiety began to ebb away form Eugene's charisma, and of course of hearing of his hilarious cross-dressing endeavors.
"Yeah, two giant red heads. Perfect for what I wanted. They could take care of themselves and me. Never trusted them though, nope, never, but we got along for the most part. But, that's alright, now they're locked away, for good."
"I know what you mean." Elsa spoke with a dark tone all of the sudden, and Eugene looked down at her saw her glare a thousand yards off. "I had a suitor with red hair that I never trusted. He went after my sister then and immediately asked to wed her. I wouldn't allow it. He only wanted my kingdom, not me, nor my sister." Elsa's voice grew chilly but there wasn't any snow or ice that came from her. Eugene still couldn't fight the chills that slithered up his spine.
"And they say men only want one thing..." Eugene jested as best he could, and it was enough to bring Elsa out of her dark place. She laughed a little and looked back at him.
"Which do you think would have been worse for him to ultimately choose? Using me, or killing me?" Elsa thought the question was innocent. Something simple to ponder over.
Eugene sighed heavily and Elsa could feel tension spring up in his left arm that she held. The chord she struck within him rang out and reverberated inside her.
"Killing you, for sure." He replied with some pain stuck onto his voice. He didn't stop walking, but he didn't start talking either. He took a moment to gather his thoughts back after she shot a canon through them.
"I believe you were trying to go first..." Elsa prompted in a loud whisper. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze with her hand and he looked back down at her, her eyes pleading again.
"I love Rapunzel, with all that I am and ever will be. I love her more than all the treasure in the world. She's more precious than treasure. After a while rubies and emeralds and diamonds! Well they all start to look the same. But, Rapunzel, she's ever changing. Morphing into this powerful woman and I am just so grateful to get to stand beside her everyday and watch her grow into who she is to become, because I know it's extremely difficult. I mean come on, an ex con turned prince? Yeah royal life is hard to learn, but it's what I've always wanted, so I caught on quickly. Rapunzel, on the other hand, was stuck in a tower for eighteen years, as an isolated peasant. She's not accustomed to wearing shoes, or not cleaning the whole day, and don't even get me started for when she got scolded by the servants for painting on the walls. It's all she knows! It's what I tried to rescue her from."
"Do you regret? Rescuing her?"
"Never. Never never never. After two years with her and I am still completely and wholly in love with her. I can't live without her Elsa, she's my everything... She's my dream."
Elsa squeezed his arm again and evoked a faint smile from him, but it returned back into a frown again.
"I just... I'm willing to do it again. I will do it how ever many times I need to in order to protect her. But, once you've actually done it..." Eugene looked down at Elsa again. "Died for who you love. It stays with you. Sure, I came back, and at a wonderful price. The wretched woman who imprisoned the imprisonable was dead and Rapunzel healed me with what was left of her magic. But, limbo... It's not comfortable like everyone would like to think. I felt like I was being ripped apart, like someone was trying to tear my soul out while I was still breathing. Everything was dark, but light kept flashing everywhere, and it was so bright that I still saw it clearly after I even closed my eyes!"
"I know what you mean." Eugene snapped his head back to look at Elsa once more. Her five words getting him out of his excitement, for which he was grateful for.
"You feel like you're breathing in liquid and sometimes cloth, just something solid. And as your soul is being taken from you, all you bones feel like they're cracking and crumbling inside your skin."
"Exactly." Eugene affirmed exasperated. Shock painted over his face.
"Yes, I know exactly what you mean." Elsa restated, a raggedy, jagged edge in her voice. Now Eugene gave her a reassuring squeeze to her arm. Elsa merely stared out again, her brow furrowed, but she couldn't understand why. She felt angry for some reason, almost like just for no reason.
"I'm right here Elsa. Come back to me." Eugene urged quietly and patiently.
"Our ship was going to capsize. It was going to make us all reunite with my parents again, but as much as I want nothing more than that, I can't just leave my people. I had to come back to them. I dove into the mad sea and froze the whole thing still, but drowned in the process. I kept trying and trying to make the ice go away after I willed it, but nothing was happening. I couldn't do anything. I kept thinking warm thoughts. I kept thinking about those I love. Nothing worked. Anna came down and broke through the ice and brought me back up, and she almost died in the process as she dragged the already dead me up."
More tears rolled down Elsa's cheeks, but she never felt them this time. Her voice never wavered from them. She was furious and now she knew why. Once again her powers mystified her. She thought she had unlocked the answers to them, but in the time of great need, in a time when her powers actually helped! She was powerless to save herself. Now her tears had purpose. Now Elsa felt them stinging against her cold face.
Elsa went to rub them away, but Eugene wouldn't let go of her right arm. He wouldn't let them stop either. He made them push on.
"Keep going." Eugene urged.
"Keep going? Keep going?! There's nothing more to go on about! I died for my sister and while I was floating in the great beyond I was being tortured while I was being saved! My powers have so sense about them and they killed me! I can't control them, no matter how hard I try, I can not control them!"
"There you go. You said it."
"Said what?"
"Everything. Now you'll feel better when you dream of it again tonight."
"How do you know I'll dream of it again tonight?"
"Because, I dream of Gothel killing me, and Rapunzel not being able to save me, every night. Some nights are worse than others." Eugene gestured at them as they strode on in the early twilight. "But, I know that if I simply admit my fears they can't control me. Yeah they can still run me out of bed, but I find it easier to go back into my room each time, I'm a little more fast to return."
"Oh." That was all Elsa could manage to say, but they felt it was enough, and on they walk in a somewhat comfortable silence. Both of them walking with a new understanding of each other and themselves.
"Would you like me to walk you back to your room? Or to kitchens perhaps for something there?" Eugene offered a few minutes after their silence became stifling.
"No, I think I should just return to my room. I would appreciate your company on the way back though."
"Of course my lady. This way." Eugene turned them around and they walked on to Elsa's room. They never spoke again the whole walk there. There wasn't anything more for two strangers to divulge really. But, the goal of getting back to Elsa's room dampened the awkward tension around them as they still held onto each other in their comfortable silence.
"Here we are your majesty." Eugene announced quietly, a hint of a yawn sounded at the end of his words.
"Thank you very much Eugene." Elsa said and then finally let go of him and went to raced back in her room, but he grabbed at her arm again before she could fully escape him.
"Hey, just do you know, you can always talk to me about this. I will not tell a soul about tonight either. It's our business. I don't want to you feel alone while you're here."
Elsa whimpered at the sentiment and with all her sleepy boldness she launched herself towards the prince and enveloped him in her tired arms for a hug lasting a few heartbeats because she was too tired to let go herself. Eugene did it for her though as a gentlemen.
"Goodnight Elsa, pleas sleep well." He said and then bowed his head to her and walked off down the hall to return to his room.
"Goodnight Eugene." Elsa called out softly and he looked back at her with a smile, and then Elsa left the doorway to walk back over to the bed. Anna was still there. She hadn't moved much, what with having to sleep with her ankle elevated. Elsa smiled down at her from the light coming from the hall. Elsa didn't want to shut the door, so she simply didn't.
She did however go and change out of her dress. That had always been a bad habit of hers, sleeping in yesterdays clothes. She just got so busy sometimes.
When she changed into a night gown she joined her slumbering sister and slipped in beside her under the covers, but allowed Anna plenty of room in case her sister did start moving about through the night.
She laid down facing the wall, her back to Anna. And after listening to Anna breath for a few minutes Elsa finally felt at peace enough to close her eyes and soon sleep overtook her as well.
What a mouthful. I wrote the dream sequence at midnight last night but then I never saved it and mistakenly refreshed the page and lost all of it so that's why I couldn't post anything yesterday. I didn't mean for this to be so long either! I still think I've written longer, but still... I think I've lost what I really wanted to happen in this story. I only meant for it to be like six chapters long at most.