Elsa found her in the Snow Queen's abandoned ice cream parlor, tucked against the back side of the half door that split the service and customer areas. The woman was almost entirely engulfed in shadow, impossible to spot from outside, but she had a hunch when she didn't turn up anywhere else that she would be here.

"Emma?"

The bell had jingled when she'd come in, and she made no effort to silence the click of her shoes on the tiled floor. But Emma didn't move or respond, and Elsa was uncomfortably reminded of all the times she had been on the other side of that door, all the times a hopeful little voice asked her name through the keyhole.

She paused, caught between taking a step toward the other blonde and staying where she was. It was obvious Emma wanted to be alone, but she had been there, and she knew that carving out that space now was the path to total isolation. And Emma had too much to lose, too many people depending on her, to freeze herself out, to lose days and weeks and months and years to fear. A small voice inside her wondered for a moment if it wasn't herself she was talking about, but she brushed it aside.

Still… this wasn't exactly her strong suit. She was just getting used to handling her own feelings, let alone trying to navigate someone else's, even if this someone and she shared so much. This was what Anna, clumsy warm goofy talkative Anna, did best, pull people from their darkness without even batting an eye, without even realizing what she was doing or how very much it meant. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and she sat heavily on the floor, back against the door opposite to Emma.

"I hit Anna with my magic once," she murmured, not entirely sure where she was going but it was as though she had released a floodgate and the words poured. "We were playing in the ballroom, after dark, and she was leaping from snow pile to snow pile as I built them. But she was jumping faster than I could cast, and I couldn't keep up…" Flashes of a child Anna, sailing through midair, laughing and crying "Catch me, catch me," hit her with the force of an avalanche and she was glad she was already on the ground, "I struck her in the temple, trying to save her from falling."

There was a stirring on the other side, the sound of a body straightening and leaning in to listen. "My parents rushed her to the rock trolls in the hope that they could save her. They succeeded, though they had to remove her memories of the magic to do it. And their leader warned me that if I did not master my powers, if I succumbed to fear, I was bound to destroy myself and my kingdom." She paused for a moment, the coil of bitterness she thought she had long since buried rising to the back of her throat. She fought the taste down and continued, "That was the day my parents decided to lock the castle gates. To lock me away until I had learned to control myself."

"Anna didn't understand why I didn't play with her anymore. All she remembered was playing happily with me, then she woke up and I was moving to a different room and locking my door. She never knew what she did wrong, why I suddenly started pushing her away."

The question was barely audible, but in the stillness, the pain in the words magnified until it threatened to crush them both. "Why are you telling me this?"

Elsa swallowed, biting back the memories of the loneliness, the guilt, the all-encompassing fear that consumed most of her life. "Even though she didn't understand, every day, without fail, Anna would come to my door and knock, and she would sing a song that we had made up together. It was her way of asking me to play."

It took all her strength to continue, to admit, "And every day, without fail, she wouldn't get an answer."

There was a soft sound from the other side of the door that could have been muffled sobs. Elsa continued, her voice somehow steady, though her hands shook and flurries started swirling in front of her eyes.

"Emma, I have been in your shoes. I know how it feels, better than anyone else in this place. And I am telling you, you cannot let it eat at you. You cannot give in to the guilt and the fear and lock yourself away from the world. I did that, and nearly lost my sister again in the process."

"You can't protect the people you love by hiding from them. Loving someone comes with risks. You can lose them. You can hurt them. But that's part of why love is such powerful magic. It's a choice. And it's a hard choice, but it's the difference between living and dying."

The door clicked and swung open so quickly that Elsa almost toppled over, but instead it was Emma falling into her lap, crying quietly, and the queen held her, rocking slightly, humming the song from her past that could hopefully save Emma's future.

Do you want to build a snowman?