Chapter Thirty-One: Snow Visions

His warm even breath that tickled her neck told her he had fallen asleep. The fingers on his hand had long ago stilled from caressing her stomach but they still lay there, a comfortable reminder of the considerate way he made love to her just minutes before.

He was wonderful.

She never thought she could experience anything like this. Long ago she had resigned herself that this act was all duty and would never offer her pleasure. She had abused him and she expected his disdain, perhaps even his violence. Instead, he repaid her with the gentleness and respect she didn't deserve.

She slowly extricated herself from his embrace and sat up to look at him. He looked so peaceful in sleep and so infinitely handsome. He was in this moment a true perfect prince.

Except he's not my prince. His heart belongs to my sister.

It was that painful reminder that struck her the moment she consented to go through this. She avoided kissing him on the scar that Anna gave him. That scar was Anna's mark on him. It was a symbol of the love she earned from him. Elsa felt she had no right to kiss him there and claim that love that was never hers and would never be hers.

She was also afraid he would realize she wanted him if he could see her eyes when he made love to her. She was equally afraid of what she would see in his face. Would he look away, perhaps trying to imagine Anna instead of her? She couldn't bear to know.

So she asked him to blow the candle.

In the dark, they could be safe together. He could imagine he was with Anna. Elsa could imagine he wanted her. There were no fantasies that could be shattered by the realities of revealing gazes and uncontrolled mannerisms visible in the light. That darkness gave Elsa the freedom to explore him and let herself be explored. It was that assurance that allowed her to be bold in a way she never dared. The moment she connected with him most intimately and he began moving inside her, she felt something glow within her, growing more and more intense until something akin to the euphoria of her powers being unleashed that first time she built her castle on the side of the north mountain, overcame her. She felt it in every fiber of her body and she knew Hans felt it too.

She couldn't stop herself from imagining what a life with him could be. She lay back down beside him and shut her eyes as she allowed her imagination to create the images.

What if he grew to love me? What if we could be just as devoted to each other as Anna and Kristoff? Perhaps we could rule Arendelle as partners? We could have children to raise together and grow old together just like Mama and Papa.

She couldn't help but smile as each image she created showed so vividly in her mind. To her horror, when she opened her eyes, the images in her mind appeared for real—conjured by her snow powers on the ceiling of Hans' bedchamber.

A snow image of her and Hans holding each other close as they kissed slowly changed to them embracing with Hans lovingly caressing her pregnant stomach. It then morphed into them surrounded by several children. Then they were holding hands, their bodies slightly bent in old age as they walked together assisted by canes.

Elsa's powers sometimes created animated pictures without her control. Since she was a child, she would wake up at times with the moving scenes of her nightly dreams depicted in snow form on the space between her bed and the ceiling. It was the reason why her nightmares were doubly more terrifying than the average person's. The illustrations created by her subconscious would invade her waking moments, making her fears all the more vivid and lasting. In every instance of a major disaster in her life, Elsa would be haunted by weeks of nightmares, often leading to a grisly snow picture the moment she woke up. The time she hurt Anna as a child triggered some of the worst bouts of nightmares that troubled her for years. Her wedding night disaster with Knudsvig was a close second. Her nightmares about Knudsvig perhaps were even worse, for they often produced scenarios that were grimmer than what happened. Sometimes she would dream about that horrible night with Knudsvig and then wake up to see the entire thing replayed, this time from the point-of-view of someone that was viewing the picture from outside her body. She would be forced to watch her assault in full detail and see how her powers retaliated on Knudsvig. But the images would not stop there. At times Knudsvig would end up becoming a complete ice statue before crumbling to dust. Other times, the image of herself would attack Knudsvig's form viciously until he lay dead at her feet. This would be followed by his supporters accusing her of witchcraft and calling for her execution while the rest of Arendelle condemned her as a murderess.

Those waking nightmares pushed her determination to ensure she never lost control in front of her first husband and granted him as much tolerance as she could even when he was already downright abusive. She was afraid her "snow visions" as she calls them, could become prophetic. For sometimes they did eventually come true. At least in two instances in her life, they did.

Not all of her snow visions were bad. Some of them gave her much joy. As a child, whenever Elsa had a good dream of her sister, she would wake up to watch fond memories of playing freely with Anna replay on her ceiling. Those little memories that appeared unexpectedly were what gave her strength during those long lonely years. When she was twelve, however, her snow vision once showed her an image of herself hugging Anna while on the deck of a frozen ship. As she pulled away from Anna, she saw herself raise her arms, causing the frost around them to melt the frozen ship to thaw until it righted itself up. That picture of control over the elements that she had struggled against for so many years had been one of the most wonderful pictures her snow visions ever produced. And it came true years later on that unforgettable day when Anna sacrificed herself and Elsa learned that love was the secret to controlling her powers.

The other instance her snow vision came true was equal parts dream and nightmare. It was the earliest instance of a snow vision she could remember and it happened when she was eight years old. She remembered it because the same snow vision kept occurring for seven straight years with more details than the last and it always happened on the same day of the year.

The snow vision started simply with just a view of the harbor where several ships were docked. The first year it occurred, she noticed the figure of an unknown man emerging from the crowd of passengers disembarking and crews unloading cargo. She didn't know why her eyes focused on this particular man. Each year, her snow vision would last longer and she would follow with her gaze the same man walking further and further down the harbor towards her castle.

By the third year, she had seen enough details to tell he had a naval officer's uniform. That was what started her sketching an unknown marine officer in her early charcoal exercises.

In the fourth year, the man reached the end of the harbor and fell off it. It had been one of the funniest things she had seen and she eagerly awaited what would happen next. She also gave him a name: the falling sailor.

By year five, she watched him attempt to get back up the harbor from his fall by grabbing for support what he realized too late, was a bucket of something that appeared to be discarded fish guts. He tumbled back into the water but not before getting his head smattered with some slimy fish waste.

In year six, he was able to successfully get back up the harbor, albeit looking like a drowned rat.

In year seven, the falling-sailor-who-got-splattered-by-fish-guts-and-managed-to-get-back-up-looking-like-a-drowned-rat got hit by a blast of sudden wind that seemed to almost topple him back into the other side of the harbor. However, he managed to steady himself. And to her surprise, he raised his arms as if he was trying to welcome the sudden gust.

In year eight, the snow vision didn't come. Instead, the real man appeared before her.

On that highly anticipated day of the year, she was disappointed by the lack of her snow vision of the falling sailor when she woke up. To comfort herself, she snuck up to one of the castle towers that had a similar view of the harbor. It was there that she saw him. He appeared from the crowds just as her annual dreams showed, wearing a naval uniform she could not discern. The shock of seeing the actual man from her dreams caused her heart to pound. Suddenly he looked up in her direction but he continued walking down the harbor. She couldn't discern his face from the distance, so she knew he couldn't possibly see her too. She figured he was just looking at the castle. She wondered why he would be so interested in her castle enough that it would prove such a distraction to cause what would happen next. Just like in her snow visions, he walked on with his gaze intent on the castle that he didn't realize there was no more harbor to keep his feet grounded. He fell with a splash and emerged half a minute later only to fall back again with that unsavory bucket dumping its contents on his head. By the time he emerged a second time as an undignified soggy mess, Elsa was bowling over with laughter.

She abruptly stopped laughing as she realized the poor man must be having the worst day of his life. She wanted to comfort him somewhat. Without thinking, she blew him a kiss, and that tiny action caused a blast of wind hurtling towards him that almost knocked him over. However, instead of cowering back, he steadied himself and raised his arms out as if he was welcoming her wind. He stood looking silly with his arms out for several moments before he brought his hands to his lips in a clear sign of a kiss he released back towards her direction.

Elsa felt such a flutter with his kiss that crystals of ice began appearing all over the tower, forming magnificent fractal patterns across the wall. But it didn't stop there, the ice patterns formed all across the eastern wall to the end of the castle borders. Horrified, Elsa fled the tower to the safety of her rooms and didn't leave until she calmed herself. Much later, her mother reported that her involuntary ice creations reached even the upper floors of the castle and sent all the servants into alarm. There were some foreign visitors that day that had been asking for an audience with her father that Kai had to send away due to their fear that her ice creations might be witnessed by an outsider. Days earlier, her father had even considered receiving foreign dignitaries again. There was even talk about gradually introducing her to some royal suitors that could be considered as her future husband. Because of the incident, her father doubled down on his policy of isolation and sent every visitor attempting to come to the castle away with an excuse.

She never found out who the sailor was. She used to go up each morning to the tower to view the harbor but he never appeared again. She tried covertly asking the castle servants for clues to his identity but there were simply too many people in the harbor that day, and a lot of them came from foreign lands. He was certain from his uniform that he was not Arendellian. However, the naval uniforms of the various regions surrounding Arendelle were too similar for her to pinpoint his exact ship.

Frustrated by the mystery, she took to drawing him to keep the memory alive. She made sketch after sketch of the same scene of the naval officer in the harbor. Since she couldn't see his face, she used the image from the biography of Admiral Jorgenbjorgen as a stand-in. Before the end of the year, she completed an entire oil painting of him using Admiral Jorgenbjorgen's features. She had hoped to revise the painting once her snow vision appeared once more and possibly reveal to her his true face. But to her dismay, the snow vision of the mysterious sailor never came again. She shut away all her drawings of him in the attic, where they lay forgotten until she used them to ensnare her present husband.

As she stared at Hans still sound in his sleep, she realized how the dreams of that mysterious sailor may have altered the course of her history. Hans was among the young royals her Papa was eyeing for her to meet before that disastrous morning. Perhaps if she had not seen the man of her dreams that day, she would not have caused such a ruckus in the castle and she would have had an opportunity to meet Hans a lot sooner and married him earlier. Perhaps the images she was seeing of Hans in her current snow vision were an image of what could have been.

What could have been or what could be?

Her heart couldn't help but wish for it. However, she shook her head as the reality of her situation brought her back to her senses.

If he should wake up now and see my snow vision what would he think? He would be horrified, she decided. I trapped him in marriage and if he saw this, he would think I was dictating how I want the rest of his life to end up in a path he never chose. Then he would hate me even more. I can't bear that.

Frantically, she dissipated the snow-made images and slowly got out of bed.

He would never see these. I will never let him. It would be better if I keep my distance from now on unless it is necessary. We can come to some arrangement so he won't feel trapped. I will grant him as much freedom as he wants.

Her heart ached to kiss him one last time, but she resisted the temptation. She left his chamber as quietly as possible.

She found Gerda in the corridor, busy with her knitting but wide awake with a tankard of coffee by her side. The physician beside her looked equally alert. Both stood up in alarm when they saw her.

"It's alright," she assured them. "It's… it's done. Our duty, I mean. Everything's fine. He is just asleep. You can both go to bed now. I just… I just want to sleep in my old room."

"Of course, your majesty," Gerda replied. Elsa could tell both her servants were curious to know more but didn't dare voice their questions. They let her pass and she walked to the third door and out the corridor to the wing of her childhood bedroom. Anna's room and the nursery were just opposite her room but everything here was quiet.

She lay down on her familiar bed and couldn't stop herself from smiling at the memory of Hans' touch.

"Goodnight husband," she whispered in the air before she allowed her eyes to close.

It felt like she had only closed her eyes for a minute when she felt a weight on the side of her bed. She was startled, fully expecting Hans to be there. For a moment, she imagined Hans must have chased after her here to persuade her with gentle kisses to return to his room. However, when she looked up it was only Anna.

"What are you doing here, Anna?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing," her sister replied gently. "Where's Hans?"

Elsa hesitated. She never wanted Anna to know that Hans was in love with her. It would change their dynamic irrevocably and she didn't want to do that to Hans.

"Asleep in his bed," she replied curtly.

"Without you?" Anna asked as a worried expression crossed her face. "Elsa… did something terrible happened?"

Elsa sat up and shook her head. "It's fine Anna. Nothing's wrong."

"But did you? You know…?""

Elsa knew this would come up and it was best to address it head-on. "If you mean we did our duty, Anna, then yes. He was very gentle with me and it went well."

"Gentle? Well?" Anna asked incredulously. "That's hardly something I expect to hear on your wedding night, not after what I saw in the library."

"Fine! Yes, Anna, we made passionate love but that's all I'm going to say about the matter. That's between him and me, so just leave me alone. I need sleep."

"Sleep alone here? After a night of passion with him?"

Elsa searched for an excuse and easily found one. "He snores okay. I'm not used to that."

However, Anna didn't appear to buy it. "I snore louder than he does and you never leave the bed halfway through the night when I used to sleep next to you."

Elsa felt a surge of jealousy that Anna knew this fact about Hans. "How in the world do you know how loudly he snores?!"

Anna rolled her eyes at her. "I took care of him for months in Warsaw and watched him sleep when he was ill! Geez! Elsa you don't have to take my head off for that!"

"I'm sorry. Look, Anna. I'm just not used to anyone sleeping beside me aside from you. That's why I just wanted to be alone here to sleep. And it's been a long day for both of us and we're tired."

"I suppose you have a lifetime to get used to each other. And you'll have more time during your honeymoon. Where are you going on your honeymoon anyway? You never told me."

"To be honest Anna, I haven't decided. I have a lot of things to do in the coming days and so does Hans so we probably wouldn't have much time for that," she said dismissively. She realized a moment later that it was the wrong thing to say for Anna reacted in her typical impassioned way.

"No time for a honeymoon? Elsa, your marriage is important too! You should take a few days off. I tell you what, I'm going to be thinking of some suggestions for you to consider. I'm going to make sure you and Hans get a romantic getaway together that you deserve. Just the two of you with no one interrupting… unlike tonight. I mean I want to apologize if I made you and Hans uncomfortable for you know… pushing for that Southern Isles tradition of sending you and Hans to bed so publicly."

Elsa could sense her sister was feeling guilty about the messy and embarrassing rite she helped Holford instigate hours ago. Anna would certainly pull out the stops to make up for it. Unfortunately, that would most likely mean pushing her and Hans to do something uncomfortably romantic. Imposing on Hans more alone time with her was the last thing she needed.

"Look Anna, tonight was fine. There was no harm done and Hans and I will come up with something. For now, just let me get some sleep. We still have a wedding breakfast to attend with the guests in the morning."

"Okay fine," Anna replied as she got off her bed. Elsa was glad her sister finally took the hint. But Anna didn't head to the door completely. "Elsa…?"

Elsa had a half-a-mind to just completely bury herself on her pillow and ignore her sister but ultimately decided to answer back. "What, Anna?"

"You love him right? And he loves you? That's why you married him."

Elsa breathed deeply and steered herself for the lie that she will inevitably utter. "What makes you ask that?" she asked.

"It's just that… I don't think his brothers think that. I mean they don't believe in love as the foundation of a marriage, and certainly not one you have with Hans."

No, they certainly do not. Everybody knows that but you Anna, but for your sake I'm never going to tell you that I put with another politically-motivated marriage to keep you from being tangled into one. "Anna, I know about Holford and how he thinks about this marriage or any marriage whatsoever as anything but a political move but right now I don't care anymore what he thinks of us or this marriage."

Anna nodded. "I was wrong to have gone with his plan. I realize that now and I'm sorry. It's just that… well it's not just Holford."

"I know about the Westergaards, Anna. You told me how they train their family members to seek out advantageous alliances through marriage or by fathering children to strengthen their political power."

"Yeah… well, Elsa… I think they're still expecting Hans to do that, with you." Anna reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to her. "This fell out of Hans' coat pocket when I picked it up."

Elsa took the sheet, unfolded it, and read the letter. Lars' words didn't surprise her at all. She had no doubt Hans' desire to marry Anna to protect her was sincere. But she realized Hans was also performing a delicate balance with his family's expectations. He, like her, was also carefully managing a front with this marriage for his brothers. Perhaps in some ways, it wasn't completely a front to him. Hans' desire for power, a sense of belongingness, and ownership was something she knew still lay deep within his personality. If he could not have Anna's love, then Elsa could give him something that could easily be compatible with his other desires. Perhaps it would be enough to assuage the guilt she had for entrapping him.

"This is nothing Anna," Elsa assured her. "Hans' motives for entering this marriage are pure. I am certain of that. And I'm going to do all I can to keep him happy."

A/N: The inspiration for Elsa's snow visions came from a cut scene from Frozen 2. This is the one where Anna wakes up next to Elsa who was having a nightmare. The images of Elsa's nightmare manifest in the real world as snow images. I figured Elsa has been having these visions as a child and they are both a blessing and a curse for her good and bad dreams can manifest as visual images even when she is awake.

Some of you have guessed right that there was something about Elsa avoiding the scar that Hans received from Anna. Elsa is still harboring deep-seated guilt for what she has done to Hans and that will continue in her relationship with him.