The young girl huddled herself under a window sill of someone's home, a dome of snow surrounding her in a sort-of makeshift igloo. She would have snuck in, but the doors were all locked. She even tried pulling instead of pushing, but that didn't work either. Breaking the glass would be a bad idea if she didn't want to get caught. Instead, she resorted to cowering under a window sill.
She felt the cold sting of frozen metal by her palm, and she flinched. Elsa nearly forgot of the knife she had laid down beside her. Looking over to the blade, she gently picked it up by the handle and examined it.
It wasn't very remarkable. A simple sharp point, serrated at one edge for better cutting, and a simple wooden handle. There were no designs, only being that of splintered wood, and there wasn't any hand guard. Elsa did not know what a hand guard was, but she assumed it protected the user's hands. Her hands didn't feel any safer holding it.
Pulling out the day's spoils from her pocket, she nibbled on the scraps of cooked meat she stole from a camp some ways a way. She didn't know what type it was, but the man she stole from seemed angry, which meant he was probably planning to eat it, which meant she could eat it. She took a bite after some contemplation. It was stiff, and she couldn't taste anything.
A sudden howl of wind flew by, but Elsa was already shivering. The barrier of snow she set up seemed to do its job, and she barely felt a difference. Maybe she was freezing to death, and she couldn't feel it. She popped the last bits of meat into her mouth.
She remembered hearing stories about how freezing to death didn't feel cold at all, and the victim would feel warmer when dying. Elsa wondered if she could feel warm when she died.
She clenched and unclenched her little fists in attempt to gauge any sort of feeling. They were completely numb. She cupped her hands over her mouth and slowly breathed into the pocket she formed, in an attempt to return some feeling to her frozen fingers, but all it did was make her hands feel colder in the little pauses between exhaling. The inside of her mouth also grew cold. She tried rubbing her hands together, but that sapped the energy out of her.
She took her feet out of her dirty shoes and drew them close to her as possible. They were soggy from the melted snow, and she struggled trying to rub heat back into her toes. She heard that frostbite starts in the fingers and toes, and she wondered how she didn't lose any of them to it.
She perked up when she heard a rhythmic crunching against the snow.
"Dammit, where'd that brat run off to?!"
Elsa froze, and it wasn't just from the snowfall.
"WHERE'D YOU RUN OFF TO, HUH?!" The voice repeated, louder. It was the same voice of the man by the campfire she had stolen from. Elsa thought she had escaped without him noticing.
The crunches quickened in intensity, and she heard someone swear. She dared not move.
"ONCE I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, YOU'RE DEAD! DEAD! YOU HEAR ME?! YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!"
The crunches paused, and Elsa's breathing stopped entirely. She wondered if nabbing the bits of meat was worth it if it meant hiding from an angry adult.
The mashing against the snow resumed, and began to grow louder. Closer.
Panicked, Elsa tore down the igloo and buried herself in the snow. The cold stung against her face, and it burned. She suppressed a scream. That would give away her location, and she would die. She didn't want to die.
The sounds suddenly grew clear, no longer obstructed by the wall of the cottage she leaned against. Maybe she should have run away instead. They grew close, so close, so near, and Elsa held back a whimper. Her senses were temporarily obstructed by the impact of a boot against the snow centimeters from her face, and she nearly yelped in surprise.
Elsa gripped the freezing handle of the knife, still buried in the snow.
The footsteps stopped, in front if her. Too close to her. Elsa's blood froze, and she didn't know if it was from the snow or not. Did he know?
Shuffle, shuffle.
She felt the shuffling and increase in pressure from snow piling on her, directly on top of her. She whimpered.
She couldn't feel her fingers. She didn't know where here toes were in her body.
Shuffle, shuffle.
Elsa shut her eyes as the noises persisted. She contemplated praying. Would the spirits listen? She hoped they would. Elsa didn't want to die.
Shuffle, shuffle.
Should she run? But the man was an adult, and she was a kid, and his legs were longer and hers were small.
Shuffle, shuffle.
She shivered uncontrollably under the snow. Her teeth did not chatter, for she clenched her jaw as tight as she clenched the rest of her body. How much longer?
A pause in the commotion, and Elsa stilled as much as a shivering child could. The sudden silence was almost jarring.
Was he gone?
Elsa felt an impact in her side, and her ribs were nearly crushed under the sudden weight. She screamed.
"Found you."
Not wanting to die, she flung and failed about wildly. She couldn't die now. She wanted to live.
She didn't want to die.
"AGH! FUCK!"
Elsa stumbled and fell on her face, but the snow didn't sting. She pushed herself off the ground without breaking momentum and ran as much as she could.
"YOU FUCKING BRAT!" She heard the angry adult call, and her pace quickened. She scrambled into town, the buildings whizzing by growing denser and larger.
It was still snowing pretty heavily, but she didn't feel very cold anymore. She wondered if it was because she was warming up or if she was dying. She didn't dwell on it too long.
Elsa turned another corner, swaying and careening uncontrollably. She needed to hide.
After running as much as her little legs could allow her to, Elsa just about collapsed onto the snow. Her heart thrummed in her ears, and the ringing nearly gave her a headache. She felt a sting in her ears; she must have gotten snow in them.
Raising a hand to clear it, she noticed she was still holding the knife. Her knuckles were bone white, but the blade was a rosy red.
The color was quite pretty, she thought.
Elsa had never harmed anyone before. She never knew humans had such warm colors inside them before today. She contemplated stabbing herself to see more, but decided against it. She preferred that the warmth would stay inside her.
She surveyed the surrounding area.
Elsa had never ventured this deep into the town before, and she couldn't recognize any of the buildings. She must have been in one of the commercial districts, when see saw lines of stalls and buildings with lots of glass and fancy items displaying behind the glass. Due to the recent blizzard, the street was empty.
No longer gripping the blade as it rest in her pocket, Elsa trudged her way into a nearby alleyway sandwiched between two buildings. She positioned herself under an overhang, where the snow couldn't quite reach. She dropped to the floor, curling up into a ball. It was at this point Elsa realized she was barefoot; she must have left her shoes during the struggle. She grabbed her feet, and nearly flinched when her already freezing hands felt colder from the touch, and her toes felt nothing at all. She hoped she could keep them. She heard frostbite made fingers and toes fall off.
...
...
...
Elsa leaned against the table, staring at the evil-eyed boy who sat across from her. He had grown quite a bit since the last time she saw him, his little gray-orange tracksuit nowhere to be seen. He now donned an orange scarf around his neck, and a dark green jacket over a light beige shirt. She also noted he holstered a whip at his side.
She wondered how proficient he was with it. The shack was pretty cramped, what with all the trinkets and merchandise scattered about, so if he was an intermediate or beginner, the weapon would prove useless.
Elsa's gaze turned to his face, looking at him directly.
His eyes were nasty as ever, and he still sported that slicked-back spiky hair style.
She couldn't quite place the emotions she felt looking at him like this. Annoyance? Apprehension? Neither of those quite fit, nor were they entirely false.
Elsa was...
Elsa was irritated. She had tried to get him to leave, but he stubbornly persisted. She guessed she should have expected something like that. He was always rather stubborn, and it was vain to see that change. She wondered how she had never killed him when they were younger, considering his overbearing nature. She came rather close to it a few times, but the boy always said or did something to make her change her mind.
She fiddled with the wilted flower in her hair.
She thought about killing him again, but the notion was almost immediately discarded. She couldn't do away with him even if she tried to will herself to. Without him, she had already...
Elsa was confused as much as she was provoked. She had killed many in the past, not long after Subaru's sudden disappearance. She knew she wouldn't have taken the jobs had he been there. What made these two so special for him to intervene? Why now?
Why did he have to take so long?
She must have been staring too intensely, because he averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his head. Elsa remembered him doing that when they first met; he gave impressions of someone talking to their murderer, and that had irritated her then. It irritated her now.
Elsa... as irritable as she was, she didn't want to kill him. She was originally going to do away with any and all witnesses, but now she was hoping she could win the bidding and leave peacefully. There would be witnesses, of course, but she could always come back and kill them later.
Then again, Subaru stayed here for a reason she picked up on fairly quickly. She considered respecting his wishes.
Elsa had never backed out on her contracts before, but Roswaal hadn't paid her anything yet, so perhaps she'd return the money the Margrave had entrusted her with.
Besides, she had a feeling the Margrave expected interference anyways, considering the extra funds he supplied her with. She was only perplexed when said interference turned out to be from Subaru, of all people.
She sighed an inaudible sigh as she finished the glass of milk, gently setting it on the table. It was quite good. Perhaps she should thank the old man.
"Twenty holy coins exactly..." muttered the giant. Elsa wondered what color he bled. Red, probably, considering the inside of his mouth, but she was still curious. Were his guts pink, then?
Elsa recalled the first time she had laid eyes on anyone's innards.
Some time ago; oh dear, how long was it by this point? nine, ten years by now? She had used a bottle of brandy to cut a man's belly, when she was just a girl. The man had tried to have his way with her, and was subsequently disposed of. The colors that erupted, to her surprise, weren't just red, but pink as well. It was fascinating and beautiful, and when she grabbed the entrails they felt so warm. Pretty and pink and delightfully warm.
Elsa had wondered if it was just the man or if everyone had pretty pink guts like that. Subaru, regrettably, had found her not long after the incident, and she very nearly killed him then, in her excitement. She was glad he stopped her, even if it took her a while to realize it.
She wondered if anyone had bowels that weren't pink. Blood that wasn't red.
The old man was talking, but Elsa honestly wasn't paying attention.
She wondered what Subaru's looked like...
Elsa suddenly felt a little sick imagining the image. She became acutely aware of the smell of milk in her mouth. How odd.
"Well, looks like the bid's leanin' in favor of the boy here," the giant grunted, "though I'm rather unsure f' it even matters in the end."
The giant eyed her with no small amount of scrutiny. Elsa had never fought a giant before. She wondered what his blood tasted like. It'd do well to block out the stench.
Subaru must have noticed, because he looked at her with one of his laughably readable expressions of his. He always had a very expressive face. She didn't really know what she felt, seeing it again.
"Alrighty, now pack yer things n' go. I don't want any more suspicious mean-eyed people runnin' around near the loot house. It'd hurt our reputation."
"Sorry big bro, but Gramps is right. You and big sis over there are super shady."
"Gee, thanks," Subaru grumbled, handing over his... cell phone, was it called? A shame, really. It was rather enjoyable, goofing about with it when they were children.
Subaru had stored a plethora of photos of he and Elsa using the device that the brute was currently fiddling with. It was always rather strange how her pupils would always flash a bright red whenever she looked at the image the metia produced. Subaru had compared her to a cat, then. She asked him if he was insulting her, and he had responded that it meant she was pretty. Elsa wondered if he'd remember the interaction if she brought it up.
Perhaps she could retrieve the metia at a later date... She would have to be shrewd going about it, though. That girl was loved by the world, Elsa could tell, and the giant was no fool. She'd most likely have to wait until it was sold off.
"Well," The raven-haired man stood up and stretched himself in a purposefully theatrical way that Elsa found rather amusing, "I guess that's that, huh? Thanks, Rom, Felt. This actually went way more smoothly than I thought it'd go, to be honest."
"Oh? And why is that?" The little girl challenged. Subaru made an audible noise of indignation, and Elsa could tell it was exaggerated. She tuned out the rest of the conversation, returning to her thoughts.
Subaru had won the bidding. According to her contract, she was to kill the girl and giant, and Subaru too, now that he had interfered with whatever Roswaal was up to, but Elsa had already decided against that. She had surprised herself with how quickly she had made the decision.
"I gotta return this thing to someone, so I'll be heading out now," he irresponsibly tossed the insignia in the air and caught it by swiping his hand in another one of his showboaty mannerisms, before pocketing it in his cloak. Oh? Perhaps he had a similar profession to her, then. She didn't know if that was a very good excuse to justify him running off like that. She'd let him decide later.
The bravado soon died down, and he walked over to her, extending a hand out, probably in hopes of her taking it. She tried to get a read on his face for any signs of deceit or ulterior motives, but couldn't quite tell what he was thinking. Perhaps he had changed, after all. Elsa didn't exactly know what to feel at that.
She didn't know what she felt at all anymore. She was certain she was confused, at the very least.
"C'mon," the man waved his hand in the air a little, still holding it out, "let's go. It's getting dark."
His voice cracked and his eyes wavered, even if his face was still. Subaru was still Subaru, in the end.
Elsa felt... something. Her chest felt weird, and the odor of milk in her mouth disappeared.
"Hmm," Elsa hummed, noting the wisps of yellow orange beginning to reflect off of everything, "it is rather late."
She locked eyes with him, his expression barely readable, brown-gold eyes peering into her purple ones.
Elsa looked to his outstretched hand once more.
Elsa... she...
She...
...
She placed her hand in his.
She looked back up to Subaru, who was smiling. It was a bright smile, made brighter in the sunset, and Elsa couldn't recall a time when he had looked so warm.
After a moment's consideration, she decided to smile back. Subaru's had brightened even more at that, and she felt hers widen in return, which was odd because she didn't intend for it to widen.
Her chest bubbled and the scent was sweet. Elsa felt...
Elsa felt warm.
"Good to see you again, Elsa-tan," was Subaru's cheeky remark, and she felt a smidge warmer.
A/N: I have no idea what I'm doing. I am unsure if I have expanded on Elsa without squandering her character too much. I should probably keep this as a draft for a while longer, but fuck it, it's posted. I can always update later.
On a side note, how many times do you think Subaru died here?