Hi guys! Thanks for continuing to read on! Sorry if this chapter is a little long but I hope you enjoy it! Please leave any reviews you have and any suggestions because it really helps with my progression of the story! Peace out!
Elsa had it worse than Emma as Ingrid's stories were entwined with her whole life; her whole upbringing had been a direct parallel to Ingrid's, although Elsa had never known it until now. Elsa was better equipped to deal with her memories, selecting them chronologically from what seemed like a store that she had acquired from in her mind. To Elsa, it was like reading a story book.
7 year-old Elsa is alone, as ever. Her gloved hands are shaking, but she's grown accustomed to her continual nerves that she could uncontrollably lash out at someone she loves, and that's why she's distanced herself from Anna. Today, she's watching Anna play in the garden with their Mother. The sunshine is blinding, but every time Elsa reaches out to the edge of the windowsill, she frosts up the glass. She moves away from the windowsill, and straight into a ledge in the hallway, knocking an urn off the side. Elsa hesitates before picking it up; worried that she could damage some prized heirloom of her parents. She reaches out towards the lid of the urn, knocking it slightly out of place. A gooey silver liquid oozes out from inside the urn. Elsa steps away, confused as to why she is now producing mercury instead of snow and ice, her usual repertoire.
But the liquid does not stop when Elsa clasps her hands together. Instead, she watches as it takes the form of a woman, much taller than herself. Elsa clasps her hands to her mouth to stop herself from screaming out.
"Uuuuuuuuh" The woman groans as she clicks her back out. Elsa reflexively puts her hands up and ice shoots out towards the woman.
"I'm sorry!" Elsa gasps as the woman watches the ice fly over her head
"You should be more careful! Powers like that are not supposed to be underestimated." The woman crouches next to Elsa and takes her hands into her own. "Why on earth are you wearing gloves?"
"To stop it." Elsa looks into the woman's eyes "You aren't afraid of me?"
"Ah, yes I would have thought Gerda would do something like that." The woman rips Elsa's gloves off.
"What are you doing?" Elsa tries to reach for her gloves "Hey! I need those!"
"Don't be silly, Elsa. Your powers are a gift, not a curse!" The woman sighs as she puts the gloves in her pocket.
"How do you know my name?"
"I'm your Aunt. It's my business to know your name."
"I don't have an aunt." Elsa says defiantly
"Oh, of course." The Aunt shakes her head "Want me to prove it to you?" Elsa nods and watches as Ingrid creates a snowman out of thin air.
"You have it too?" She looks shocked
"Runs in the family." Ingrid wipes her hands together. "Wanna have some fun?"
"Please!" Elsa takes Ingrid's hand and they go into one of the many rooms in the palace.
For most of the day, Ingrid shows Elsa tricks of the trade, how to make doll houses and how to make it snow all the time. She shows her how to ice skate and how to make so many snowballs that Elsa will always be able to beat anyone in a snowball fight. Ingrid's honed powers and Elsa's enthusiasm make them a great team, and together they play the day away until they are both lying in the snow, Elsa wrapped in Ingrid's arms.
"Are you cold? Your hands are shaking my dear." Ingrid asks
"No, they do that all the time." Elsa shrugs "The cold never bothered me anyway." Ingrid smiles and for a while they lie in silence.
The doors are pushed open. Gerda enters, her face as dark as thunder. Elsa rushes to her Mother, her face beaming with a smile.
"Mama! I'm not alone! I'm not alone!" Elsa pulls at her Mother's dress but Gerda pushes her daughter away, into the hands of Elsa's nanny.
"How did you get out?" Gerda shouts at Ingrid. "You monster!"
"I was knocked out!" Ingrid pleads "I mean no harm. I just want to help her!"
"We're trying to help her control her powers, not lose control!" Gerda kicks the snow "We don't want her to turn into a monster like you!"
"Mama!" Elsa shouts, pulling at her Nanny's tight grip of her hand. Gerda holds up the urn to Ingrid.
"You are going back." Gerda snarls "I can never forgive you, ever."
"Please! Please don't put me back! It was an accident, a horrible, horrible accident!" Ingrid is crying and Elsa tries to reach out to her. "I can help her!"
"Take her memories of you away!" Gerda shouts "Now! She must never know of you!"
"Please Gerda, if you just let me – "
"You are nothing to me! Do it now!" Gerda screams and her daughter cowers. There is a flash of purple light and Elsa loses all her memories as her Mother captures her sister in the urn again.
Elsa shuddered. Was her Mother the monster? She pulled out another memory, desperate to rid herself of any feelings of hatred for her deceased Mother.
This time, Elsa is crying, crying and crying and crying. She has done something terrible and is running from it, but she can't remember what. She runs through the castle and into the east wing, an area of the castle she had previously not been to. In an attic room she cowers in the shadows and continues to cry like Niagara Falls have opened in her tear ducts.
When the tears ease up a little, Elsa finds matches and a candle on the chair next to where she is sitting on the floor and so she lights a candle up. Sniffling, she moves to retreat to the solace of her room, unsure as to what has led her here.
Children's toys are scattered across the room. She guesses they are Anna's old throw-outs, although they look a little old and Anna was always given the newest and best stuff to compensate for her lack of a sibling. Elsa walks around the attic room for a while, pulling down white sheets that are covering the room in various places. She reveals a window, an incredibly dated rocking horse and one of the sleepy cats that roam Arendelle's castle day in and day out.
The last sheet is a bit harder to pull down, but in the end Elsa brings it down with a clunk. She has unintentionally pulled something off the wall. A massive painting, it appears. She considers going to get some help to put it back up but decides to do it herself, would anyone want to help her after what she has done?
Anna lifts the golden gilded frame. It looks like it should be in her Father's office, where the grand paintings are. She leans it against the wall. Wiping off her hands she inspects the painting.
There are three girls. Elsa leans in closely, one of them is definitely her Mother, she can see from the flame red hair her and Anna share. Even though she is about Elsa's current age (13) she has their nose, and Anna's cheeky smile. Elsa smiles to herself, she rarely sees images of her Mother.
Elsa's eyes scan to the bottom of the painting, to the title. It's dusty, so Elsa reaches down and wipes the gold plate.
"Gerda, Helga and Ingrid of Arendelle. Their royal highnesses, the three sisters of the realm."
Elsa gasps. Sisters? Her Mother has no siblings! Why has she never seen any pictures of them before? She stares deeply into their faces. They have her nose, Anna's smile. There's something funny about the biggest one, the one Elsa assumes is Ingrid. She looks familiar and she clasps her hands in the way that Elsa does when she's trying to conceal her power from everyone. She traces the creases in Ingrid's hands. She feels strange, like there's something between Ingrid and herself that she has already experienced.
There's a bang from below and Elsa runs away.
The next memories were vague. Hans is present in one. He released Ingrid from her urn-prison. There's lost images among the memories. A snapshot of Elsa and Ingrid visiting Elsa's ice palace retreat on the North Mountain, a picture of them making ice cream. These memories had faded over time, but Elsa soaked in every aspect of them, not wanting to miss out on her life that she had forgotten.
Elsa is older; it's a few weeks before Anna's wedding and Ingrid is helping Elsa design her dress as maid-of-honour, chief bridesmaid and stand in Mother and Father to the bride. Elsa's made sure Anna's wedding will be a national event. It's a holiday and Elsa has planned the most extravagant party for the people of Arendelle. It drained the finances, but Elsa has deemed any price worth Anna's happiness.
For a while now they have been in front of the mirror. Elsa is in her normal get-up, blue caped dress. But she has been fashioning herself variations of it in green, purple, and yellow. It's hard to design dresses that can suit the Queen of Arendelle.
"What about red?" Ingrid asks, sketching a very plain dress on the paper in front of her.
"Too boring." Elsa makes herself another dress and sighs before giving up and lying down on her bed. "You know I' m going to tell Anna about you before she has her wedding."
"No!" Ingrid drops her pencil. "I mean, Elsa, it's fun, just the two of us!"
"Anna has a right to know. I promised I wouldn't keep secrets, and from the stuff I've heard from her, I'm pretty sure she's not keeping them either." Elsa shrugs "Why do you care?"
"I…I" Ingrid stutters "No, it doesn't matter."
"Tell me, Ingrid." Elsa sits up
"I'm scared she'll hate me, like your Mother, after she finds out what I did."
"Oh Ingrid!" Elsa swoops down next to her "She's not like that! Anna would love to know you"
"I'd just rather…we didn't" Ingrid says "Don't you just like it being us?"
"I do but…I'd like it more if it was the three of us." Elsa admits and fashions herself another dress before the memory fades away.
There was a bang across the room and Elsa watched as Emma fell to the floor, unconscious. Elsa rushed to Emma's side, pushing away all invading memories. Eventually the stress of holding off the stories her mind had to tell was too much, and Elsa fell by Emma's side, watching in her unconscious state as Anna denounced her as a sister and trapped her inside the urn that created this nightmare situation